The Presidency has earmarked a budget of over N35bn for ex-militants in the Niger Delta. Special Adviser to the President on Amnesty Programme, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, said that the money was to cater for skills acquisition and vocational training.
Kuku presented the proposal before the House of Representatives’ Committee on Niger Delta, headed by Hon. Warman Ogoriba.
According to him: “A review, analysis and discussions of actual proposals with training vendors and educational institutions as well as other re-insertion factors have revealed that a projected figure of N35,409,859,972.63 is to be spent in the year 2013 on the reintegration of the ex-militants enrolled in the Presidential Amnesty Programme.
“As mentioned earlier, 63 per cent of this sum will go to service ongoing commitments while the balance, that is 37 per cent, will be expended in placing 3,000 transformed ex-agitators in either formal education or vocational training in the fiscal year 2013.”