Minister for Energy, Dr. Edmund Daukoru, on Sunday advised Niger Delta youths to learn skills that could earn them a place in the oil and gas sector of the economy.
He also warned the youths against criminal acts.
Daukoru, who spoke at a reception in his honour by Rivers/Bayelsa Business Group in Port Harcourt, said the only people with the relevant knowledge of the oil and gas sector from the region could tap from the benefits available in the sector.
The minister said the Niger Delta youths were sitting on a time bomb with their refusal to position themselves technically to reap from investments in the oil and gas sector in preference for hostage-taking and other forms of violence.
He pointed out that people of other regions were the ones currently positioning themselves for opportunities available in the oil industry while the youths from the Niger Delta were busy destroying the legacy put in place by their forefathers.
The minister said that over $20bn was being put into the sector and that only persons with the relevant technical skill would be able to benefit from the fund under the local content policy of the present administration.
He warned those arming the youths to desist from the act, as the claimed there was nothing they could achieve through the use of illegal arms.
The ministser said, �In the next five years, we will see expenditure in the oil and gas sector at well in excess of $20bn. Job opportunities are projected to be over 30,000 that will be created and it is only those who are qualified that would benefit.
�We are sitting on a time bomb. We are traditional just like our trading culture which made our forefathers to spend most of their time on trade routes moving from one to the other.
Unless we do things that can add value to what we already have, we cannot develop.
�To do that, we have to have the relevant skills to add value in the oil and gas sector as well as allow every player to contribute his own quota.
�We cannot achieve anything through force of arms or by pointing guns at our enemies but to use intellectual approach.
�Opportunities in the Niger Delta abound and all we need to do is to be well positioned enough to exploit them as well as put our hands together to solve the problems of the region�.
He however described development as a continuous process that needs constant improvement and called on all developmental agencies to ensure that more was done while people should prepare developmental blueprints with which they should pressurise governments to develop the area.
Earlier in his speech, Chairman of the Rivers/Bayelsa Business Group and Chief Executive of Monipulo Group of Companies, Chief Lulu Brigss, extolled the virtues of Daukoru.
He and admonished youths and those agitating through violent means in the region to desist from doing so as it was causing capital flight.