How N-Power Came Into Being, Afolabi Imoukhuede Opens Up (Throwback)

 

It's Thursday and we do a throwback to May 2019 when the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Job Creation and Youth Empowerment, Afolabi Imoukhuede revealed how the popular Federal Government of Nigeria scheme, N-Power was birthed, AllNews reports.

Afolabi was speaking in Abuja, the Nigerian capital at the National Social Investment Office’s (NSIO) world press conference on the activities of the Social Investment Programmes (SIP) since 2016.

The presidential aide while highlighting the efforts made by the Buhari-led administration to address the problem of unemployment in Nigeria, explained that it is in the government’s bid to fulfil their 2015 electoral promise on job creation to Nigerian youths that the N-Power scheme sprung.

“And secondly was also the reason why the job creation unit was carried out in the presidency, in the office of the vice president," Imoukhuede said.

“And then, right after that, as we began to unravel the implementation of the promise, which has now become the National Social Investment Programme, it was also important and imperative that the job creation…How do we speak to the needs of the youth, within the context of our social investment, and that’s why we then have what is now known as the N-Power programme.

"Just like the Special Adviser (Mrs Maryam Uwais) has alluded to. That component speaks primarily to the job creation component of our Nigerian youths between the ages of 18 and 35."

Earlier, Mrs Uwais (the current Special Advisor to President Buhari on Social Investments) stressed that the N-Power programme was based on merit.

“All N-Power beneficiaries receive their stipends directly – with no middle man," Uwais said.

"The entire N-Power programme is technology-driven and not influenced by anyone."

READ ALSO: N-Power 2020 Recruitment: Who Can Apply?

According to the Buhari government, the famed scheme addresses the challenge of youth unemployment by providing a structure for large scale and relevant work skills acquisition and development while linking its core and outcomes to fixing inadequate public services and stimulating the larger economy.

The N-Power Volunteer Corp 2020 involves a massive deployment of 400,000 trained graduates "who will assist to improve the inadequacies in Nigeria's public services in education, health, and civic education".

Unemployed Nigerian graduates between the ages of 18 - 35 are encouraged to put in for the programme which portal for registration opens on the 26th of June.