IYC urges employment plan for youths to curb oil bunkering

Amnesty Programme pays beneficiaries’ allowances

CITING the need to find alternative means of livelihood for oil bunkerers, the Ijaw Youth Council, IYC has called on the Federal Government to design alternative employment programme for the people of the Niger Delta region who are involved in the illegal activity.

President of the IYC, Comrade Udengs Eradiri, who stated this in a chat with newsmen in Yenagoa, advised that as the government is stopping their means of livelihood, the people must also be rehabilitated, stressing that when they are denied access to their own resources it would give rise to another form of militancy in the region.

Meanwhile, the Presidential Amnesty Programme, in a statement by its Head of Media and Communication, Owei Lakemfa has disclosed that all allowances of the beneficiaries have been paid in full.

The Amnesty Office therefore called on anyone who still has complaints regarding the payments to come forward, while informing youths agitating for inclusion in the programme, that there is no room for such as it has passed the demobilisation stage and is now at the re-integration stage.

The IYC leader maintained, “I have said in the past that as much as we support government’s war against oil theft, it must come up with an economic plan as an alternative, so that as you are stopping them from what has become their source of livelihood, you are providing an alternative.”

Eradiri also called for probe of how oil blocs were shared in the past, adding that if President Muhammadu Buhari was sincere with his anti corruption drive he should also revisit and investigate owners of Nigeria oil blocs.

“We must also investigate how past oil blocs were shared. Did it follow due process?”

He called on the President to exempt the NDDC and some revenue-generating government agencies from the Single Treasury Account.