Abuja—Several months after they were withdrawn from their training
school in Cyprus, 67 amnesty trainees are to undergo a fresh selection
test to determine their eligibility for placement in new institutions
abroad.
The affected Niger Delta ex-militants, who signed up for the Amnesty
Programme in 2009, were sent to study various skills at Inter College,
Larnaca, Cyprus, in 2011 but were withdrawn last December and asked to
return home when Nigeria discovered that the school was not accredited
to offer the courses it was offering to the trainees.
Vanguard’s finding reveals that the Kingsley Kuku-led Presidential
Amnesty Programme was misled by one of its vendors to select the Cyprus
school.
The trainees, it was gathered, were withdrawn when it became clear to
the Amnesty Programme that the certificates to be issued to the
students at the end of their programmes would not be honoured by
prospective employers.
The affected students have, however, become agitated since they
returned to Nigeria and have asked the Amnesty Office to take steps to
find appropriate training institutions for them.
In a text message to our reporter, weekend, the students complained that
they had been left almost stranded without any communication with the
Amnesty Office since their abrupt return to the country.
However, the Amnesty Office said, yesterday, that it had not
abandoned the affected trainees and was working hard to source another
school for them.
Amnesty Head of Media and Communication, Mr. Daniel Alabra, said that the affected students would, however, be subjected to a
fresh round of selection test on March 25 to determine their suitability
for new schools.
Alabra said: “It is true that the students were brought back when we
discovered that the school was not accredited, principally to save them
from avoidable problems in the future.
“We cannot allow them to waste their precious time and return with
worthless certificates and be stranded in Nigeria. That is why we are
doing our best to sort their problems out once and for all.”
They lamented that it was wrong for the Amnesty Office to keep them
in the dark, having lost some years before they were taken to Cyprus for
the aborted training programmes.
Source: Vanguard
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