A Nigerian liquefied-petroleum-gas producer said Friday it is in talks with a disarmed militant leader to hire or train his men as local and international companies seek to consolidate the gains of a recent amnesty process.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB, RDSB.LN) has already signalled it will train former rebels in the restive Niger Delta after they took advantage of a presidential pardon to drop their weapons last month. But the plans unveiled by Global Gas and Refining Ltd. are the most detailed plans to date regarding the hiring of ex-militants.
“We are trying to see how we can accommodate more of the youths that are disarming” through a not-for-profit foundation the company supports, said Kenneth Yellowe, chairman of Global Gas and Refining.
Yellowe cited contacts between Global Gas and Prince H. Amaibi who, under the pseudonym of Busta Rhymes, was the deputy of militant Farah Dagogo. Dagogo was one of the two main field commanders of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, before both men agreed to disarm last month. MEND has since declared an indefinite ceasefire.
Amaibi confirmed the contacts, saying they focused on hiring disarmed militants for pipeline surveillance and construction works.
“We went there (meeting Global Gas) to say sorry,” he said. “We want a partnership…We will use the boys that come from the creeks to stop the restiveness of the youths,” he said.
Yellowe said he wants to hire disarmed members of Amaibi’s group for a low-income housing scheme to replace expensive house-boats. Amaibi already “has a company,” he said. The men would get jobs and basic training–for instance in bricklaying–from an international engineering contractor, he said.
But the chairman added other disarmed leaders were welcomed to contact him.
Global Gas is Nigeria’s largest independent producer of cooking gas and owns a 120 million-cubic-foot-a-day gas processing plant in the Cawthorne Channel area, in the Eastern Delta. The company is an affiliate of Houston-based Global Energy Inc. (GEYI).
Staff at the company’s gas processing and storage vessel were briefly kidnapped last year but were released without paying ransom, Yellowe said.
But as a result of the incident, operations were disrupted after contractors working on the vessel decided to leave.
Yellowe said hiring and partnerships with ex-militants would be conducted through a foundation it supports, Awoma. Awoma employs about 250 youths, many of them former militants and Global Gas uses its services for surveillance in the Cawthorne Channel area, he said.
But he said, “I am not trying to buy peace.”
Elizabeth Lozano, a project associates at Global Energy USA, a sister company of Global Gas in Houston, said it is seeking retired executives in the U.S. to provide business courses of three to six weeks in the Delta.
The public targeted would be women and militants who have returned to civilian life, she said. She said trainees would learn to run a company and write up a business plan. They would get a certificate for the studies that would help them get small business loans.
Nov92009