The Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs says it has received no fewer than 160,000 applications for the 2015 skills acquisition programme for non-militant Niger Delta youths.
Mrs. Godiya Yohanna, the Director, Community and Youth Empowerment in the ministry, who made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja, however, said that paucity of fund was stalling the training designed to create employment for them.
The ministry had so far trained 4,861 non-militant youths of the region in various skills since its inception.
Information available to NAN showed that the youths were trained in oil and gas, agriculture, seafaring, maritime engineering and information & communications technology (ICT), including iPad and telephone assembly.
According to her, poor budgeting for the programme is a major challenge, adding that the ministry was still owing the companies it collaborated with in training the non-militants youths .
She, however, said that the programme, if implemented, would encourage the youths to be employers of labour, adding that the ministry was set to empower more youths in various skills both locally and internationally.
She said that the ministry’ s mandate was to work towards providing training programmes that would enable the beneficiaries to become self-employed, in order to promote the economy of the region.
The director hinted that the ministry’s skill acquisition centres in the nine oil producing states in the Niger Delta were near completion.
“The centre in Akwa Ibom and Delta states will 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.”
The director stated that the ministry was working towards bringing all the centres onstream.
“However, the ministry’s zeal for the completion of projects has been hampered due to paucity of funds.”
She said that the ministry’s decision for a private sector operator to manage the centres, when completed, was the best approach, to make them operate optimally and become enduring.
NAN recalls that the ministry recently appealed to Niger Delta youths who participated in a Federal Government-sponsored agriculture training programme in Israel to exercise patience, due to the delay in the disbursement of their take-off grant.