Siasia, Amnesty Initiative engage Niger Delta youths By Jude Opara, Abuja As part of efforts to end youth restiveness and militancy in the oil rich Niger Delta region, the Presidential Amnesty Initiative in conjunction with the SiaOne Soccer Academy as well as the To Be Connected Nigeria have designed a programme aimed at redirecting the teeming youths from crime and criminalities into other laudable ventures. The three organizations believe that the initiative which will combine sports and education will at the end of the day produce young men and women who will not only say good-bye to restiveness but will add meaning to national development. Siasia Proprietor of SiaOne Soccer Academy, Samson Siasia and the Director, Dean Dynamics Company, Hon. Faruk Yabo in this interview told the Saturday Sports Vanguard that the idea, which they described as the first of its kind in the country could also be extended to the troubled North East part of the country. Excerpts: Can you tell me what you have been doing since you left the national team? Well you know the circumstances that made me to quit the national team they way I did. I don’t want to go back to those issues again because I have put them behind me and I am now focused on what I am doing with my Soccer Academy, which I must say, is equally engaging me meaningfully. We learnt you are doing something for the Presidential Amnesty Initiative for the Niger Delta. What is it about? Yes, SiaOne Soccer Academy is in partnership with the Presidential Amnesty programme of the federal government as well as the Dean Dynamics Company. We are using sports and education hand-in-hand to engage the youth in the Niger Delta Area. I want to appreciate President Mohammadu Buhari for the initiative as well as Gen. Paul Boroh (retd) for giving us the opportunity to do this. General Boroh called me as an ex-international and a national team coach to come and use my experience to polish these boys meaningfully. The Amnesty programme is using sports to look for that lasting peace in the area because sports is a unifying factor. We want to thank him for recognising that with sports we can achieve a lot in terms of human capital development especially in the Niger Delta region. You know that sports is a unifying factor in Nigeria and we want to also use sports to bring peace and unity in the region. We want to redirect the thinking of the youths of the Niger Delta from crime and restiveness to meaningful engagements that will guarantee their future. So how has the programme been since you began with them? To be frank with you, the programme has been a huge success. We have been able to identify the youths that have the type of talent which we believe can propel them to the pinnacle of their football career in future. We went to Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Abia, Rivers and Delta States where we selected 30 players from each of them. We went to the rural areas where most of the boys stay and talked them into coming to embrace the initiative. From that number, we converged in Uyo where we screened and picked the young and good ones among them from 15 to 20 years old whom I believe have prospects. We are waiting for further directive because we are doing a collaborative effort to merge academics and sports together. Hopefully, this coming week, we are going back to Uyo to do the academic part alongside the sports programme that we already have. What will you be doing with the other people who may not have impressed in the soccer screenings? To start with, I have to inform you that there are plans to train them in other vocational ventures so as to give them a means of livelihood. That is being worked out and in a very short time, it will commence in earnest. However, what we are focusing on at the moment is what I call the dual career pact of sports and academics. Dean Dynamics Company will run the academic aspect of it while we handle the sports aspect. For emphasis, the organization did a similar thing for the Sokoto State government and that is from where we discovered Shehu and Usman who today play for the national team. Let me also tell you that the Dean Dynamics Company has been working with the Bacelona Academy for a while and they have this Ian Cryuff Academic programme. This is what we are exactly doing in Uyo with the players we have selected. How many people have you selected for this phase and what are the modalities? The people we are selecting will have the opportunity of getting the best because what we are doing is modelled after the Ian Cryuff Academic Programme in the Netherlands. We employed coaches and last week did trials for agitators from Oron. There we picked about 30 of them and in all we have about 100 people we have engaged. We will screen them and then do the academic aspect of it which the Ian Cryuff programme will be handling. The aim is to engage the agitators to drop their arms and embrace sports. Talking about the modalities, they were screened from the primary skill level to see what they can do with football and also to know their educational background. This will last for two months, it is a crash programme and while we are training them in soccer, the educational aspect will equally be running. After four hours of training, we go to school, it was supposed to be for four months but we are trying to crash in into two months. They will be given the Diploma at the end of it all so as to be able to help themselves after their football career. I have assured Boroh that it is going to work and he likes it. Talking about other sports, when do we hope to see this come on board? As I said earlier we are also talking about inculcating other sports apart from football as time goes on but right now I can’t tell you in specific terms. You know that we are just starting and it is going to be a gradual process. We must find coaches in most other sports especially those that the people of the region enjoy doing like Wrestling, Swimming as well as Female Football. I think this is the best programme he has done since he came on board, he has done so much well because the problems of agitations we were having in the Niger Delta area has disappeared because he has been going down there to dialogue with them and not just throwing money away. He has been doing what he was supposed to do by engaging them and telling them that government is ever ready to support them as long as they remain calm and peaceful. We appreciate him and hope they will allow him to continue doing what he has been doing. For the Niger Delta region since he took office. Boroh really wants to change the lives of the teeming Niger Delta youths and I don’t see him sparing anything within his reach in doing this. You seem to be loved by many, perhaps that is why you were chosen to do this, but what happens if tomorrow you get another national team job? I tell you, the programme will survive itself that is why we employed many qualified coaches. There will be no vacuum and we have a two year deal with the Amnesty programme. We have coaches that can stand in a do the job without any supervision. This programme must go on and I don’t have to be there fp0r the programme to run. As the CEO of SiaOne, what I will do is to breeze in once ina while and see how things are faring and to insist that everything worls according to the plan. How do you see the Amnesty initiative of the federal government in the next 10 years? Honestly, since the assumption of Gen. Paul Boroh (retd) as the SA to the President on Niger Delta, the problem of restiveness is dying down. The way I see it, in the next 10 years, the Amnesty programme will be over and that is why we want to redirect their focus. We want to let them know that breaking of oil pipelines will not solve our problems. We want to let them know that if the same area can produce people like us, that they too can also achieve fame without restiveness and agitations. If you are feeling marginalized, there are civilized ways of letting the world hear you and not by being violent. I will equally suggest that we get two clubs in the Niger Delta where these boys can play and I know that they can even progress to play in other leagues outside the country. We are equally thinking of basket ball where the players can even get scholarships to play in places like the United States of America, track and field is also there and honestly, Amnesty programme will not run forever. What do you think Nigeria as a country should do to end this spate of agitations and crisis? The Niger Delta people are not lazy and can earn decent living like other people. Violence cannot resolve any problem. At the end of the day after all the crisis, issues are always resolved on the negotiation table. On the other hand, the federal government should begin to dialogue with the aggrieved people. They should find a way of curbing the issues of marginalization. The post Siasia, Amnesty Initiative engage Niger Delta youths appeared first on Vanguard News. from Vanguard News http://ift.tt/2tzUvfG via Naijapounds