The Federal Government, through the office of the Special Adviser to the president on Niger Delta Affairs on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding with the German airline, Lufthansa for training of pilots.


At the signing of the agreement held at the office of the Special Adviser, Kingsley Kuku, the two parties entered into a deal to train some 20 pilots that have already qualified from schools in South Africa.


The training with Lufthansa is what the parties described as type rating or jet rating that qualifies them to handle specific airliners, especially the caliber owned and used by Lufthansa.


The Lufthansa team led by Capt. Holger Hoffmann, Managing Director of the Pilot Training Network of Lufthansa said the training would last 40 months and would make the trainees roundly qualified as commercial pilots of world class.


The president's Special Adviser. Kuku, noted that the trainees, all from the Niger Delta and under a special project to make them fit into the nation's aviation sector would qualify to be of benefit to the nation's economy.


He said one of the major areas the present administration has made positive impact is in aviation and most of the pilots that operate the sector are not Nigerians. "This training would avail the nation the best opportunity to develop pilots of repute who would contribute in the development of the sector and the economy generally.


So far, my office has deployed 176 delegates to four countries in Africa, Middle East and Europe for training in the aviation sector ranging form pilots to aviation maintenance engineers. The delegates are currently undergoing various courses in renowned aviation institutes in South Africa, UAE, Jordan and Greece."


Kuku noted that the project is part of the special scholarship programme "for youths of the Niger Delta through his office that has sent out 53 delegates since March 20, 2011. Most of them have passed all requisite examinations and have secured their Private Pilots License (PPL) and also Commercial Pilots License (CPL) but still require further trainings to make them fitter for their careers."
http://odili.net/news/source/2013/aug/23/505.html

The topic should have been lufthansa to train 20 Niger delta pilots or lufthansa to train 20 'first family' relatives. Since it is no one's fault that some regions are earning more revenue for the nation than others, i am of the opinion that every region should be given equal number slots when opportunities like this arise irrespective of whether the region is producing just groundnuts and bitter cola instead of crude oil to avoid over empowering a certain people while others are left out..