The Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) reveals it has prepared 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).

The training, held at designated centres in Delta, Rivers, Bayelsa, and Akwa Ibom, was in continuation of a programme for NIRSAL loans which PAP commenced in November 2021.

The interim administrator of PAP, Milland Dikio, in a statement signed by his media aide Neotaobase Egbe on Sunday, counselled the beneficiaries to use the loans to become successful entrepreneurs judiciously.

He cautioned the beneficiaries against misuse of the facility, adding that diverting the loan would create more hardships and further plunge the region into extreme poverty.

Mr Dikio, represented by the head of reintegration, Alfred Kemepado, said that the training would help the beneficiaries grow their businesses and mitigate risks.

At the Yenagoa and Port Harcourt centres, Mr 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,” he stated. “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.”

NISRAL is a Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)-backed programme targeting entrepreneurs in the agricultural value chains at a concessionary interest rate of nine per cent.

(NAN)