The recently-commissioned Innoson Kiara Academy is supported by the Innoson Motor Manufacturing Company under the Education for Employment (E4E) Programme for Niger Delta Youths and in partnership with the Presidential Amnesty Office, in Nnewi, Anambra State.
While commending the Innoson group for the support in facilitating the centre, Deputy Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Nkem Okeke, who was present at the ceremony to officially declare open the facility, noted that the greatest challenge for the present governors was how to get Nigerian youths gainfully employed.
“The state government is already partnering Innoson to provide a requisite knowledge to some of our youths who come here for some training. I can see that this programme is more like an offshoot of what the state government is doing with Innoson. I thank the Chairman of Innoson Group for his efforts to partner with state government and partner with federal government.”
On his part, Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator of the Amnesty Programme, Brig-Gen Paul T. Boroh, who was on hand to officially commission the training programme, also expressed strong optimism that factories like the Innoson Motor Manufacturing and Plastic Manufacturing were needed in the Niger Delta to put a final stop to militancy in the area.
“I will say my decision to bring these young men to Innoson is a worthy one because I interviewed the delegates and investigated the degree of their with some of the ex-militants training and they all said they are happy with this place, and they will want a replica of this company (Innoson) in South-South part of the country that’s Niger Delta so that there will be more industries and factories in the Niger Delta.
“Some are training in manufacturing of plastic related items and some are learning automobile and I’ve been to this two places, I think it is perhaps now to have such thing like this replicated in Niger Delta.”
Addressing the delegates earlier during the commissioning ceremony, Boro noted that the Federal Government would save N5 billion at the end of the year when 7,000 delegates will be completing their programme,” said Boroh.
Speaking on the deal with Innoson, the Head of Vocational Training of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Mr. Lewis Akio, said: “We got into partnership with Innoson for the company to train them on the processes of car making, assembling, maintenance and all of that.
“We sent out a list, we have a database of delegates who have not been trained because our mandate is to train about 35, 000 people. We got some of them, screened them to be sure they have the right attitude to come for a programme like this and of course they have the interest in the programme.
“Once we have done that we brought them over to the trainer who profiles them and then send their names back to us. We have contact with some of them so that at intervals when we receive reports from the trainer that he has done A, B or C, we call them again to check that things are going well.
“We do receive monthly report from them and at interval we send a monitoring team to come here and check what they are doing.”
Chief Executive Officer of Innoson Kiara Academy, Mr. Endi Ezengwa, on his part, explained that the production at the training facility is done from the scratch to finish.
“When they came, the factory has various departments, various sections. As you are aware, production is done here from scratch to completion. What we have done is that we have broken them into different departments, those on welding, those on painting, those on mechanic part, those on electrical part of it as well.
“After three, four months in the department, we now move them around according to what they want to do, so by nine months they would have learnt what they want to do in those sections.”
Over 200 ex-militants presently undergoing various forms of automobile training at the newly-commissioned facility lauded the project and the important contribution of the Innoson Motor Manufacturing Company to its success.
The trainees also used the forum to call on government to establish more factories like the Innoson Academy in the Niger Delta, even as they also asked for extension of the training duration to one and half years in order to ensure that they are fully equipped with knowledge.
One of them, Alero Gideon, said the nine months duration for their training was inadequate, noting that Innoson factory has a lot to offer to them if given the appropriate time.
“We commenced the training here on December 5 last year; in nine months we will not be able to achieve our goals. We are appealing to the Federal Government to make it at least one year, six months so that we can be able to learn all that we needed to know here and perform very well at the end of our training.
