A Niger Delta activist and the Special Assistant to the Amnesty Coordinator, Alfred Kemekpado, has urged youths in the region to embrace and maintain peace so that investors can be motivated to invest in the region.
He said that investors and industrialists would be attracted to the region to establish companies that will create employment when they know that the region is peaceful.
Kemekpado who made this known in an interaction with journalists in Port Harcourt, recently, noted that no meaningful investor would invest his money where there is insecurity and uncertainty.
“I urge the youths of Niger Delta to embrace peace, so that investment can be attracted to the region. Many companies left the region in the heat of militancy and agitations.
“All these blocking of roads at slightest provocation is not helping matters, rather it is sending negative signals about the Niger Delta, which no investor would like to associate with. There is room for dialogue and amicable resolution of any disagreement”, he said.
On the present state of the amnesty programme, Kemekpado said that the programme was being repackaged to bring amnesty back to the Niger Delta.
According to him, amnesty before now was an Abuja based affair, which though has made some impacts, but has not achieved the desired success that was envisaged.
He said the present administration has decided to bring the programme back to the region, and has been meeting with stakeholders to that effect.
“It is no longer designing programme for the people, whether that is what they want or not, but this time we are meeting with them to also find out what they want or need.
“We want to train them in specialised skills, not just to enable them secure or get a job, but we are training them to be even employers of labour”, he said.

By: Corlins Walter