A former Special Adviser on Niger Delta Affairs to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Kingsley Kuku, has called for the rehabilitation and completion of vocational training centers in the Niger Delta region.
Kuku specifically mentioned the training center in Kaiama, Kolokuma Opokuma Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, which was vandalized by hoodlums in 2019. He urged the Presidential Amnesty Office to prioritize the rehabilitation of the facility.
“Bring back the center, no matter what it will cost you,” Kuku said during a visit to the PAP headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday.
“The facility, when revived, can serve as an advanced training center for universities in the region, even beyond being a facility for training ex-agitators.”
Kuku commended the PAP for its various initiatives aimed at empowering and reintegrating former Niger Delta militants into society. He specifically praised the Aviation Resuscitation Programme for Pilots/Aircraft Maintenance Engineers, under which some beneficiaries are currently undergoing their Type-rating Certification Programme in South Africa.
“In today’s Aviation Industry, any Pilot without Type-rating is nothing,” Kuku noted. “You are touching lives. After what you are doing for them now, they will get jobs easily.”
He expressed his belief that the PAP, under the leadership of Interim Administrator Major General Barry Ndiomu (retd), has brought back hope to the Niger Delta. He pledged his continued support to the PAP in its efforts to sustain the gains of the Amnesty Programme.
Ndiomu, while acknowledging that the PAP has not fully lived up to its objectives, recommended a possible transition of the scheme into “a Social Investment Agency” to directly impact the lives of youths in the region.
He also lamented the vandalization of the Kaiama Vocational Training Centre in Bayelsa and assured that the facility would be rehabilitated.
In a related development, Ndiomu disclosed that the Vocational Training Center in Agadagba-Obon in Ese-Odo Local Government Area of Ondo State would be named after Kuku in recognition of his contributions to the development of the Niger Delta region.
