Over 2,200 youths in the Niger Delta
region of Nigeria have been empowered in various skills. This revelation was
made recently by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Dr. Steve Oru, NaijaAgroNet
reports.
He stated that under the Goodluck
Jonathan’s administration non-militant youths in the region have acquired various
skills."Mr. President has been so passionate about the people in the Niger
Delta region. It is on the strength of his transformation initiative that the
ministry has made progress so far."
Dr. Oru said the youths were trained
in oil and gas, agriculture, maritime, seafarers, engineering, information and
communications technology (ICT) as well as iPad and telephone assembly, adding
that the trainees were all drawn from the nine states of Abia, Akwa Ibom,
Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, and Rivers.
In an interview with the News Agency
of Nigeria (NAN) and monitored by NaijaAgroNet, Oru explained that the training and empowerment programmes
for youths in the region was a continuous exercise.
NaijaAgroNet
also gathered that the ministry's skills acquisition centres in the nine oil
producing states of the Niger Delta region were near completion even though
fund is a major challenge but that efforts were being made to bring all the
centres on stream.
"The centre in Akwa Ibom and Delta states would concentrate on oil and gas, ICT and maritime studies.The centres in Abia and Imo will train youths in commerce, the one in Cross River is on entertainment and tourism while the Ondo skills acquisition centre will focus on agriculture.
Cyriacus Nnaji/ED,OPs
