The Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Col. Milland Dikio (rtd), will on June 12 this year, flag off training for former agitators at a multi-billion naira cassava processing factory in Ebedebiri, Bayelsa State.
The indigenous firm handling the project, Teecentinel Group, disclosed this in a statement made available yesterday to Journalists in Port Harcourt.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Tonye Imasekha, the beneficiaries would be trained in batches for a period of eight months.
She said the ex-agitators would receive theoretical and practical trainings on cassava cultivation and farm management at the 60-metric ton daily capacity cassava processing factory.
She explained that the training would be in line with the novel Train, Employ and Mentor (TEM) scheme introduced by Dikio.
Imasekha said that Dikio would be on ground to flag off the training on June 12 at the site of the factory, noting that the effort was in collaboration with the Bayelsa State Government and PAP.
She said: “We are commencing the training of delegates of the Presidential Amnesty Programme in June. The plant was designed to process starch from cassava. So we will do both theoretical and practical training for them to be well equipped.
“This training will follow strictly the Train, Employ and Mentor scheme of the PAP under Milland Dixon Dikio. We will run it in batches and at the end the beneficiaries will receive the required skill in the processing of cassava to starch”.
Imasekha said the trainees would be employed as outgrowers of cassava stems to feed the factory’s operations.
Expressing optimism about the prospect of the training specially to promote food security, Imasekha, thanked the Dikio-led PAP for believing in her company to undertake the task.
She said Dikio had uncommon commitment to change the narrative of the Niger Delta, describing the PAP boss as one of the best things that happened to the Niger Delta.
Imasekha said that having executed many jobs with federal and state agencies of government, she was impressed with the private sector mentality Dikio deployed in running the PAP.
She thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for appointing Dikio into that office, stressing that the former military chief had not disappointed in the discharge of his duties.
She said: “Effortlessly Dikio has made huge impact since he came on board. Unlike in the past, PAP is now a reformed agency that is run as a private sector entity. This of course is because of the man’s extraordinary and deliberate intention to do the right thing.
“What we will achieve with this training which is the vision of Dikio is massive food security in the region and beyond. I am so grateful to President Muhammadu Buhari for the wise choice of Dikio”.
The Project Management Consultant for the facility, Mr. Adebowale Ayoade, also said the delegates would learn cassava cultivation, production, processing, equipment maintenance and other businesses involved in the cassava value chain.
He explained that the factory would buy all the cassava from the delegates’ farms and they will be certified by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).
