By Emmanuel Nduka
The Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) is preparing an additional 1,500 former Niger Delta militants for single-digit interest loans offered by the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), a statement said.
A training was held at designated centres across Delta, Rivers, Bayelsa, and Akwa Ibom states in continuation of a programme for NIRSAL loans which PAP commenced in November 2021.
Milland Dikio, Interim Administrator of PAP, in a statement signed by his Media Aide, Neotaobase Egbe on Sunday, counselled the beneficiaries to use the loans to become successful entrepreneurs judiciously.
The beneficiaries were cautioned against misuse of the facility, and that diverting the loan would create more hardships and further plunge the region into extreme poverty.
Dikio who was represented by the Head of Reintegration, Alfred Kemepado, said the training would further help the beneficiaries grow their businesses and mitigate risks.
Similarly at the Yenagoa and Port Harcourt centres, Dikio who spoke through his Special Adviser on Projects, Godwin Ekpo, asked the beneficiaries to form cooperatives and focus on agriculture.
“We have asked them to form themselves into cooperatives, look at the agriculture value chain, production; processing, packaging, and logistics, to see where they fit in.
“A lot of them have shown interest, and I am hoping that maybe, by tomorrow, they will form themselves into different clusters in the value chain of several products,” he advised.
