…sets up c’ttee to engage companies

By Samuel Oyadongha

Yenagoa—Ijaw youths, under the aegis of Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, worldwide, met in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital, to x-ray the condition of Ijaw and Niger Delta youths, especially beneficiaries of the  amnesty programme with a view to getting them employed.

The IYC noted with concern that the companies operating in Ijawland and the Niger Delta region were still maintaining the practice of recruiting their personnel from Lagos and other parts of Nigeria where they have their head offices to the detriment of Ijaw and Niger Delta youths who are unemployed.

Spokesman of IYC, Mr. Eric Omare, in a statement, said that under the Presidential Amnesty programme, oil companies operating in the Niger Delta region whose oil production and revenue have increased as a result of the peace ushered in by the programme ought to engage the amnesty programme beneficiaries who have been trained.

He said though thousands of Niger Delta youths who are beneficiaries of the amnesty programme, through states and federal government interventions and personal efforts have acquired skills in different fields, especially in the oil and gas industry in some of the best schools and training centres all over the world, they remained unemployed.

He added that in the past, the excuse the companies operating in the Niger Delta gave was that the youths were unemployable in the sense that they did not have the requisite training.

“This is no longer tenable as many Niger Delta youths are now well trained and even came tops in their classes in their trainings abroad. Accordingly, the youths who met under the auspices of the Ijaw Youths Council with other Niger Delta ethnic nationalities youth organisations in solidarity attendance resolved as follows:

“That henceforth, no company would operate in Ijaw land and the Niger Delta region without employing Ijaw and Niger Delta youths, who are eminently qualified to work in such establishments in all categories of their workforce.”