I am not one of President Goodluck Jonathan’s biggest fans. However, I now have reason to sing the man’s praise; albeit grudgingly.
The cause for which I must now sing GEJ’s praise is the amnesty program, or more significantly, that part of program that saw thousands of rustic Niger Delta youths (ex-militants if you like) attending human capacity development training programs in Nigeria and overseas.
Despite the negative news reports in the media about some unruly participants who found it hard to let go of their “jungle” ways even though they have literary been removed from the jungle, the facts from Amnesty Program insiders indicate that the youths in general conducted themselves exceptionally and were outstanding in training.
While some might suggest that I should have awaited the return of the “boys”, seen their effectiveness in the field, before calling their trip a success; I will humbly beg to disagree on the pretext that the echo of a big storm cannot be mistaken for a light shower; at least that was what I made of facts available to me and the comments of a staff of Trumps Consulting – one of the companies handling the Malaysian arm of the training program. The staff member said, “The only problem we had with the boys in our group is how fast they were learning. We had to add more to their curriculum as they exhausted the standardised training that was recommended for them.”
Now, that caught me off guard, especially as I have for long associated bloodletting, Indian hemp smoking and generally unruly behaviour to the “boys”.
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