The Mayor of Urhoboland, Eshanekpe Israel a.k.a Akpodoro, has commended the consultative initiative of the Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP, Dr. Dennis Otuaro, for carrying all critical stakeholders in the Niger Delta project along in his administration.
Akpodoro noted that it is a new height in the pace setting prowess of the Administrator who he described as a management guru.
The Administrator had played host to traditional rulers and women in the Niger Delta region in Warri recently where he made far-reaching commitments on the growth, empowerment and development of Niger Delta women, thus according them due recognition in the regional project.
Commendably, Dr. Otuaro had invited women of Niger Delta region for a brainstorming session in Warri, the commercial nerve centre of the oil-rich Delta state where matters of regional importance formed the fulcrum of their discussion.
To Mayor Akpodoro, the PAP Administrator earns more of his respect for that act and honour accorded the mothers of the region saying only a man with sound mental and psychological capacity could think deeply as to bring in the women folk into regional discuss.
The Administrator at the Warri meeting had announced the progress made by his office in the training and empowerment of women since he took the mantle of leadrship of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, promising to do more to ensure that the women were not left behind in the human and material development of the region.
Recall that Dr. Otuaro at the meeting had highlighted his achivements to include bringing women into the programmes and policies of the PAP, stating that women have a lot to benefit. He said when the program started women were not considered.
“But under my leadership as the PAP administrator, women will be carried along. Though, we have done little for the women. About 780 women have been sent to school. 1,389 women trained, and about 1000 women have been empowered.”
Mayor Akpodoro said the Amnesty Programme has exited the woods of backwardness and retrogression surging into the world of developmental agencies across the globe that see women as important agents of growth and accelerated development.
He said the Administrator has opened a new vista in the management of the programme just as he commended Dr. Otuaro for bringing the traditional rulers into the fold, saying the rich knowledge and wisdom of the custodian of customs and traditions of the people are needed to pilot the affairs of the region.
“On behalf of all well-meaning ex-agitators, youths and persons of the Niger Delta region, I express gratitude to the Administrator for his novel ideas particularly that which factors in mothers of our region in the region’s development templates.
“It’s a noble and novel idea that has never been thought of by the siren blaring past administrators under whom the programme was a cash-cow for the enemies of our regional interest.
“Dr. Otuaro is a human development expert who has demonstrated his savvy in all his public service and has brought that to bare on our regional existence, and for that, we must commend him greatly.
“Same he did with the traditional institution. He met with them at the heels of his sessions with the women and won the confidence of the traditional rulers too in the region.
“We cannot appreciate the administrator less having seen the wasted years under malfeasants who feasted on the programme at the detriment of human and material development in the region,” the Mayor excitedly stated.
The Mayor extended his gratitude to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the National Security Adviser to the President, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, for appointing a technocrat to take charge of the affairs of the programme and reviving it from its dead state.