23rd August, 2017
The Coordinator, Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Brig.-Gen. Paul Boroh, says the PAP is winding down its reintegration programme in enhancing human capacity development.
Boroh said this when he paid a courtesy visit on the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr Bayo Onanuga, in Abuja on Wednesday.
The coordinator said he had carefully designed an exit strategy in the programme to ensure gradual wind down of the programme, which was in a current reintegration phase.
According to him, the programme is in its reintegration phase of the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) after training and empowerment of beneficiaries.
NAN reports that the DDR model was adopted by the amnesty programme to train beneficiaries from communities that were negatively affected by arm conflicts in the region.
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“ We are not recruiting more people into the programme any more. Right now we are in the reintegration phase of the presidential amnesty programme.
“It is about winding down. It is a DDR programme coming from the United Nations. We’ve done the disarmament, demobilisation; we are now in the reintegration phase.
“That phase has to do with developing a capacity of those that are in the programme in the area of skill acquisition, entrepreneurship and capacity building,’’ he said.
Boroh, however, called for strategic partnership with NAN in the area of networking, information dissemination concerning the programme to help in informing the wider society.
Responding, Onanuga commended Boroh for his good work, saying that there had been some levels of reduction in tension in the region.
Onanuga, while pledging continued partnership to get wider coverage of its programme, called on the coordinator to do more especially in the area of subscribing to NAN products such as the PR-Wire and NAN.ng.
“Our agency has been maintaining a robust relationship with amnesty programme and it had been the best partnership so far,’’ he said.