Participants undergoing practical training.
About 150 former Niger Delta ex-militants/agitators have commenced one month training on agricultural enterprise in Umuahia, Abia State capital, under the Presidential Amnesty Programme of the Federal Government.
The Abia State Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) in collaboration with Fadmobat Investment Ltd is conducting the training, which is the second to be effected in the state by the Presidential Amnesty Office.
Speaking while declaring the training open at the Umuahia ADP headquarters, the state ADP Project Manager, Chief Batho Onyemaobi, said that the programme was designed not only to equip the trainees effectively to tap into the nation’s agricultural potential, but also to engage them in agriculture-related businesses and make them employers of labour.
The programme manager, who described Nigerian agricultural sector as a goldmine, said top professionals were engaged as resource persons to educate the trainees in egg production, fisheries, commercial farm ownership, records/accounts keeping, personnel management and farm products marketing, among others.He charged the participants to put into practice what they would learn to enable them to earn income thereafter, stressing that in view of the dwindling resources from oil, agriculture had become a viable alternative in the country.
According to the Presidential Amnesty Office, represented by Mr George Ogbonna and Mr Abangwu Cletus Chika, one of the targets of the programme is to train the participants to become agric entrepreneurs and job creators, adding that the participants would promptly be paid their entitlements after the programme as directed by the Amnesty Office.
It was, however, the opinion of some of the participants that one month period was not enough for them to learn all aspects of the agricultural enterprises.Participants demanded laptop computers, describing them as crucial learning facility and commended the Amnesty Office for organising the training.A participant, Abraham Ibiyikom, expressed dissatisfaction over what he termed delayed commencement of the programme 10 years after dropping his gun.
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