We’ll go Ahead with Protest Unless Paid, Amnesty Trainers Insist

We’ll go Ahead with Protest Unless Paid, Amnesty Trainers Insist

The group of trainers enlisted by the Presidential Amnesty Programme protesting the non-payment of salaries have while insisting that unless their concerns were attended to, they would still go ahead with the 30-day protest but flayed being classed as ex-militants as they were professional engineers.

However, they acknowledged that the office had reached out to and were currently engaging them towards addressing and resolving their complaint which they insisted were genuine. They explained in a statement that it was a mistake to refer to them as ex-militants simply because they worked under the programme, pointing out that they were chosen, trained to help train the ex- militants, a reason they were issued with employment letters for the job

Garanwei Pere Pere-Uge , Simon Ebizimor, Andrew Daubry, Usen Osasere Stelios, Ikiriko Ibiwari, Appah Michael Oyinprebi, Alagha Ebinidenge Emmanuel, Odiki Esther Ebimoboere and Ugochukwu Bon Nwakanna said they were law abiding citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and were never involved in any form of criminality or arms struggle, hence we are not enlisted as Ex-militants in the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

“We are Professional Engineers, most of whom are registered members of the Nigeria Society of Engineers with vast local and international education and industry experience.

Employed in 2017 as staff of the office of the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme as facilitators of the Oil and Gas Vocational Training Centre in Agadaba, Ondo State. Our training at the TTE Group, Middlesborough, United kingdom was in conjunction with the Petroleum Training Institute which had some of its, best subject experts in Process, Mechanical, Electrical and
Instrumentation as our course mates and because of the global demand for the skill sets we were to acquire, we were compelled to sign a bond undertaking that we will remain under the employment of the office for a minimum of four years. As law abiding citizens, we have remained committed to our bond. The non-payment of our salaries runs contrary to best practices of staff recruitment and welfare and also against our statutory provisions as captured in the Nigeria Labour Law.

“We are resolute in our resolve to protest until the right thing is done. However, we suspended our proposed protest that was scheduled to commence on the 15th of December 2020 pending the outcome of the ongoing settlement meetings,” they explained.

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