By Meletus EZE
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has enlisted 150 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from the Boko Haram ravaged North East for training as motor mechanics.
the Director General, NDE, Mr Muhammad Ladan, while flagging off the special vocational skills training for the IDPs on Tuesday in Abuja said they all agreed to be trained as mechanics.
He said the mandate of the NDE was to create jobs and provide the needed skills for unemployed Nigerians.
Ladan said NDE would provide them monthly stipends as a way of encouraging them, adding that the trainers must ensure they attended training 20 times in a month as a precondition for their monthly stipends.
“We have their names, account numbers where we will pay their stipends at the end of the month including their trainers,” he said.
Ladan said NDE would give them the necessary tools to enable them start off as soon as they round off their training.
He however called on the IDPs to embrace peace, unity and shun violence, adding that they must know that they have no other country than Nigeria.
The Boardof Trustee Chairman, Kugbo spare parts dealers association, Mr Cajethan Udekwe, said if this type of training had been organised for people in the North East and other zones, the country would have been enjoying relative peace.
He called on the NDE to extend same gesture to spare parts dealers, stressing that this would help salvage the country.
Malam Usman Bukar, an IDP and a beneficiary of the skills acquisition programme said he opted to be a mechanic because of his love for the job.
Bukar who hailed from Gwosa in Borno state said he ran for his life because of the activities of Boko Haram insurgents.
