The Rivers State
Commissioner for Youth Development, Owene Wonodi, has urged policy makers in Ogoni land to always give priority attention to the children of poor in empowerment programmes of oil companies operating in the area.
The commissioner gave this advice yesterday at Rivers State Polytechnic, Bori during the graduation ceremony of LiveWire Programme for Ogoni youths organised by Shell.
Wonodi said it was wrong for children of the well-to-do to dorminate such programmes stressing that when the active poor gets priority in such programmes it improves their well-being.
The commissioner who was represented at the event by the Director, Youth Enterprises, Mr Ogbuzuo Festus, further advised Ogoni policy makers to initiate a monitoring strategy of evaluating how the graduands of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria’s LiveWire scheme perform to ensure that the trainees are putting the knowledge in good use.
He equally challenged the lucky trainees to see the programmes as a wonderful opportunity to develop themselves and their families.
The commissioner said it would be counter-productive for the graduands to sell the starter parks provided to them by SPDC or abandon the knowledge acquired in the training.
He challenged other corporate organizations to emulate SPDC in such initiatives noting that it creates employment opportunity by making the beneficiaries self-reliant.

Chris Oluoh