Search For Common Ground: Learn Skills To Better Your lives: Ndiwari

 

Bulodisiye Ndiwari, the Local Government Chairman, has urged Bayelsa Youths to be learn  some life skills that will make them productive both to themselves and to the society.

Speaking at the weekend in Yenagoa during a one day summit organized
for  community leaders by Search for Common Ground with support from European Union in partnership with Yenagoa Local Government, Ndiwari also advised the youths of the state to desist from cultism and all manner of crimes stating that crimes don't have gratuity and retirement benefit.

Advising the youth to run away from crimes, he maintained that nobody invests in an environment where there is unrest adding that the government was trying to fix up something yo make sure that the youths are engaged.

He said:" Our youths should stay away from drugs and cultism.These things that you people do, there is no retirement benefit in them. There is also no gratuity in it and so when you are above your prime, those people who are using you to do things will dump you and you will suffer. So I think that they should think of trade, and life skills to learn.

"We as a government are doing certain things to help out and very soon we will unveil them so that we can redirect their energies towards productive  ends. The youths should not be tools in the hands of people who want to get some kind of  empire unknown to government. They feel that they control zones and territories. Those teritories are only known to those in those organizations. It is not known to me and you.

He expects that at the end of the day, "the youths, the CDC chairmen,  traditional rulers,  community and women leaders gathered here will go home better informed about resolving crisis in their domains and when such arises, how to quickly report  so that government at the higher level can escalate  and then come into solving such problems. They should not resort to self help having learnt all of these today. When ever there are issues, they will know when to report and how to get solutions to their problems.

He commended Search  for Common Ground  for their effort adding that "there is every need to partner with Search for Common Ground to bring more peace in the region.

He thanked the organization for gathering the community people to have a first hand information  of the challenges they are facing and see how they  can be solved to mitigate the security challenges plaguing the Yenagoa Local Government Area.

Ndiwari also thanked them for  training some youths  and improving on their manpower adding that  "we will leverage on success recorded. We will look out for home grown solutions as they are winding up to see how we can continue with the  processes.

"We will not just say that it is one of the interventionist agencies and it has come and gone.No. We want to leverage on what they have done  and work with those that were trained  to continue to do what they had been thought so that the success recorded will not just be wished away."

Francis Opumoni, Senior Special Assistant to Bayelsa State Governor on Security and the coordinator of community safety corps, who represented Governor Douye Diri said that scavengers in the state were being arrested declaring that their activities have turned to something else.

Opumoni who is also member of the State Peace Architecture of Search for Common Ground, maintained that his boys have been arresting them adding that he wants to make sure that all of them are arrested.

He said:"Scavenging issues have been going on around Bayelsa, not only Bayelsa, the nation as a whole. For the past three to four days, you see  that our boys have been going round and arresting any scavenger we see, because it has become a menace in the entire state.

"You see people mentioning scavengers in Okordia, Biseni and what have you,  so we are not taking it  lightly. We want  to make sure all of them are arrested and we will  drive them from the state because they are not just doing what they are supposed to be doing. Even me as a person, my house has been vandalized by this scavengers, so we are not relenting on that aspect.

"There is  an executive law from the state executive council so it's an issue concerning the state. So all   hands must be on deck, don't relent to tell anybody that this is what is happening in your area, by so doing all of us will be on the same page.

Commending Search for Common Ground for their intervention, he said that they are searching everything in the  Nigeria Delta.

Search he said has  assisted in making sure things are done in a proper way "by lifting our hopes to make sure crimes and criminality are reduced to barest minimum.

"So, I guess that  search has done well and I pray that they should continue to do more even if they exit, we can still plead with them to continue this collaboration which we are all enjoying. We on the part of the state government, we are collaborating to make sure things work well and we'll give a necessary assistance in the areas we can to make sure things are done well."

Sunny Dada, Mass Media and Information Management Coordinator, Search for Common Ground, in his remarks maintained that he was  satisfied with search  has done so far  "even though we would have wished for more  time.

He stated some of the challenges have spanned for  several decades  in communities and you don't expect that eighteen months of intervention will suddenly take away or resolve these issues so we are not deceiving ourselves.

He said that  "we are expectant. Our expectations are moderate,  we are seeing immediate results and some results  are going to happen after five or  six years as the case may be depending on the issues  but the most important thing is that we are happy with what we have heard from community leaders.  So we are happy and we are hopeful that these efforts will be sustained.

He advised that the communities should not  allow the structures to die. "We have set up early warning structures in all the sixty six communities that we are operating.

" And it is our expectations that as we leave, these structures will be integrated or transformed into community governance structures. We have already seen some of them happening in some communities where they are now influencing policies and programmes around the communities.

"So, we are calling on all the community leaderships to strengthen the structure we have set up and make them community governance structures so that they will continue to act as early warning  and early response platforms

DADA said that  Search has also given  skills and the capacities to  the youths  calling on duty bearers to "identify the youths,  bring them home and see how those skills and capabilities can be chanelled into positive ventures.

"There should be a peace building advisory council or a peace building agency.These are the resources that they will need to set up such an agency.

"The livelihood intervention that we are doing the communities should be protected. You know we have a mentality that government property is not my property but this is not government property, these projects  we are taking to these communities are tax payers money from EU Nations.

"It behoves on community leadership and even community members to ensure that they protect these projects that we are currently carrying out in various communities.

"We have youth empowerment in some communities our livelihood interventions and skill acquisition programmes. We have a total of fifteen skill acquisition programmes and the registration  for that programme is not limited.

"Any youth that wants to acquire skill you are encouraged to register. You are not coming to register with search, you are in the community, take the form from the CPA Chairman, do your registration indicate the skill.

"We are happy with the response that we are getting and we are still talking to some youths that have not registered in those communities to take advantage because you are not paying any money and some communities the training has started."

Walson Ebi  Benjamin who represented the Ekpetiama Clan in Gbarain Kingdom said that  there are issues of herdsmen grazing which he said was a peculiar one in the kingdom.

Also chieftancy Tusle where there are two factional leaders in some communities,  also drug abuse, disclosing that the NDLEA gave them the licence to operate but don't sell the drugs to them.

Because of that he said that most of the boys are already on the street while some are already mad.

"Some of them are now scavengers constituting nuisance in the community, cultism also is there. Government settles them any time they want to do rally. These cultists unit anytime they want to collect money from the government and the government is not doing anything about it.

"That is why cultism is still thriving and land cases. Some persons will sell.a piece of  land to one person and still  sell it to another person. Also Oil exploitation,  these IOC's are the agents of divide and rule in our kingdom.

He called on   security outfits to station their vans in the junctions in the clan  so that the community folks can asses security agents on time.

"Let us have these security agents with their men and guns within our environment so that crimes will reduce.