Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State has advised the beneficiaries of Ebilade Ekerefe’s computer training programme to make good use of the opportunity advising that they should not sell the laptops given to them by the organizers.
Speaking at the weekend in Yenagoa during the presentation of laptops for the first batch of the free ICT skill acquisition training/commencement of the second batch organized by the office of the Ijaw youth council spokesman Ebilade Ekerefe, governor Douye Diri who was represented by Tonye Isenah a house of assembly member in the state said that The ICT remains another oil industry that has not been tapped up to 10% adding “It is more than the oil sector and it has not been tapped.
He thanked the interim administrator of presidential amnesty programme major general Barry Tariye Ndiomu (rtd.) represented by Alaowei Opukeme Jonah the state focal person, presidential amnesty programme for providing the computer laptops for the beneficiaries.
Advising the beneficiaries he said “For people saying don’t go and sell the computers, I don’t think it is mandatory to tell you people not to go and sell it. Don’t ever think it is our own concern. If you sell it, the woman in the beer parlour will take part of it and before you know it, the money is gone and then you start looking for another opportunity which may not come.
“The money in the internet is too much. You can make money through there. Bayelsa is very peaceful and it is an opportunity for young people to go about their businesses and excel.
“Government cannot employ everybody. This is an opportunity created by a young man like you, please take advantage of it and see what you can do. The government is here to partner with young people like these.
“This is an opportunity to make money instead of chatting in messenger and whastapp. We want to see young girls advertising their goods on line and people will patronize you. This is a systematic way of creating manpower. If for instance the Brass LNG kicks off, nobody will tell you that you are not computer literate so we can’t employ you.
“Ekerefe, I congratulate you on behalf of the governor, please don’t rest on your oars, you have just started see it to the end while you are doing this, people are watching a young man trying to carve a nitch for himself.
Speaking earlier, Ebilade Ekerefe the Ijaw youths council spokesman said he was fulfilled haven kept his promise that he was going to build their manpower adding that it started like a child’s play but now about eighty youth have been trained and laptops given to all of them.
Ekerefe said “I’m a fulfilled man because I promised the Ijaw youth that when we take over as spokesman, we will not only speak but we will also create a platform where we will give them skills and build their human capital and give them empowerment.
“It started like a child’s play but today, we have trained about eighty of our youths in computer coding, web design and appreciation and we did promise that anybody who participated will be given a brand new computer laptop and what you are seeing here is in fulfilment of that promise.
We tagged the programme project 301 ICT for Ijaw youths. We have started and finished eighty and we are about training another eighty, the idea is that by the end of this year, we should be able to have train three hundred and one youth and put them in ICT value chain. It is going to be a continuous process but you see programmes like this, most times may be short-lived when we don’t have necessary support so support and sustainability of the programme is very important.
“We are doing every thing within our powers to sustain the programme while we are also calling on government, the NDDC, the regional movement including the federal government to look at this initiative and support us because this is the only way we can reduce crime and criminality and ensure that the environment is peaceful for the oil to keep flowing.
“I thank our partners, the presidential amnesty programme under the leadership of major general Barry Ndiomu who graciously gave us these laptops that we distributed. And the Douy Diri who also gave the financial support for us to carry out this project through the ministry of youths and sports.
“For the beneficiaries of this programme, we have restated again that this is a non-governmental programme. The people who have benefited from the programme were carefully selected. They were hungry to learn so I doubt and I don’t want to believe that they will want sell those computers.
“They have learnt knowledge in ICT and the only thing that can enhance their productivity is these computers that are presented to them. We will be monitoring and there is also a tracker system that we have installed in the systems and I don’t think that anybody will like to sell.
“Giving them these computers is just one step to many steps that we will take. We are not going to leave them like this. We are also going to scout for opportunities in the private sector including the multi- national oils companies to see how we can also integrate these persons that we have trained.
“This is a clear paradigm shift from what the Ijaw youth council used to be so other institutions of government, multi-national companies should key into this project. I think there is no better time than now for them to key in to projects like this. It is in their best interest, they are the ones carrying out exploration activities in this region and you need peace for you to carry out your activities and if we have deliberately decided that we will not allow our youths to carry arms, these institutions should then give us the enabling support so that we can train more youths.
“Clearly, you can see that the IYC is gradually moving away from violent agitations as it were into productive engagement which has to do with human capital development of our youths.
“You cannot talk about agitations these days without ICT. The world is a global village so while our boys are on the frontline, we should also have an army of young ICT compliant youths that can also communicate the message to the world.
The chairman of the occasion, Oyinfie Jon-Jon former president of IYC and special adviser to governor Douye Diri on Ijaw national affairs for keeping the flag flying.
He said “This is what we have always been yearning for that the younger ones when they get opportunities, they should make very good use of it so that from here, they snowball to something greater.
He said that Ekerefe was laying a very good foundation and we believe that the younger ones will emulate him. ICT is the key thing in life.
The beneficiaries of the programme Igonderiya Inih Wisdon Ikuli and said “I’m really blessed to be part of this programme. I always have this inclination towards computer ever since I was in secondary school even in university, I was not computer literate.
“When I saw the opportunity, I had to take it and I’m very glad to get this knowledge and I thank him for the laptop.
Igrubia thanked Ebilade Ekerefe for impacting this knowledge in his life. “Over time I have been wanting to undergo this programme and apparently, they thought me on how to go about computer. I’m very much happy for a day like this because this will do a lot of great things to improve my life in the compete world.
