Acting-President, Yemi Osinbajo, has said the federal government has plans to engage youths of the Niger – Delta region who are involved in illegal refining of crude oil by employing them in the modular refineries the government will establish in the region.


He also debunked rumours that the amnesty programme of the federal government has been scraped adding that more resources has been earmarked for the sustenance of the programme in the 2017 budget.

Osinbajo disclosed these during a special engagement on Niger-Delta matters held in Port-Harcourt on Tuesday.

He said: “We have talked about those young men and women who are involved in illegal refining of crude oil

“Our approach to that is that we must engage them by establishing modular refineries.so that they can participate in legal refining not illegal refining. And we are committed to making sure that young men and women of the Niger-Delta region are properly engaged.

“We’ll look at the amnesty issues, we’ll make sure that amnesty continues. Some people have been trying to suggest that we have remove the amnesty programme. That’s not true. We have made more provision for amnesty than has ever been made.

“We have made more provision for social intervention. Rivers state has the second largest number of unemployed young graduates who have been employed by the federal government under our N-Power scheme.”