Etop Ekanem
29 February 2012, Sweetcrude, LAGOS —President of the South-South Youth Council, Lagos State, Mr. Tomzine Benedict, has called on oil multinationals operating in the Niger Delta region to relocate their corporate headquarters to their areas of operation.
Speaking to newsmen in Lagos, Benedict said that with their offices in Lagos and Abuja, Niger Delta youths had not benefited in terms of employment.
He contended that if there were no infrastructure on ground to absorb youths being trained in different skills through the amnesty training programme, the essence of the training would be defeated.
Benedict said: “Are they being trained to become useful citizens in the society or they are trained to go back to the creeks to resume hostage-taking and vandalisation of oil facilities?
“If there are no infrastructure to absorb them after their training, they will definitely go back to the creeks.”
He also called on President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure that the benefits of the amnesty training programme go round all the ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta region.
Benedict, who made the call against the backdrop of protest by some ethnic nationalities over alleged exclusion from the programme, said all youths from the region participated actively in the struggle and so none should be excluded from the amnesty training scheme for the ex-freedom fighters.
