EXCLUSIVE: N-Power: FG Lied, Owed Beneficiaries Insist They’ve Not Been Paid

Contrary to what the Federal Government (FG) said in May that it has paid N-Power beneficiaries’ owed stipends for the months of March to July 2020, bonafide batches A and B beneficiaries who spoke to AllNews say they have not been paid at all.

14, 200 N-Power beneficiaries have still not gotten paid their entitled stipends one year after their disengagement. These beneficiaries (graduates) are placed on a N30, 000 (an estimated 73 US Dollars) monthly stipend. They are categorized under N-Teach, N-Agro, N-Health, et al, and are assigned to Place of Primary Assignments (PPAs) in their state of residence.

Batch A N-Power beneficiaries were enrolled into the famed scheme in 2016, while their Batch B counterparts were onboarded two years later. The number of both batches is put at roughly 500, 000.
When the outcry was rife, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, around October 2020 directed those with payment challenges to report to their various State Focal Persons for verification and re-validation. These beneficiaries obliged — according to many of them.

Following continued demand by the exited N-Power beneficiaries for their money to be paid, Farouq speaking in Abuja in May during a workshop organised by her ministry had said: “I don’t think we still have the issue of N-Power backlog. We have sorted that out with the office of the Accountant General of the Federation.

“It has been a very tedious process but as at the last count, we have paid all the beneficiaries after the series of processes.”

But when this newspaper spoke with several exited N-Power beneficiaries on Thursday 29th of July 2021, all of them said one thing: ‘The Ministry lied, nobody has received alert’.

Yomi Adebola, a Batch A beneficiary based in Lagos told us: “I use Wema bank, and to date, I’m still waiting for my June 2020 stipend.”

Yetunde Ajayi, Ondo-based said: “I can’t believe a grand corruption happened, and despite it being brought to the attention of the President, EFCC, ICPC, and the House of Representatives, nobody is saying anything or investigating where our money went to. It’s sad.”

This payment issue implies that Nigerian authorities fail to account for N2,130,000,000 (two billion, one hundred and thirty million naira).