N-Power: Document Counters Nigerian Govt’s April 2020 Revelation On Famed Scheme

A document submitted to the National Assembly by its joint committees on poverty alleviation has revealed that 450,000 beneficiaries will be enrolled into the famed N-Power scheme, AllNews reports.

This revelation, following the obtainment of the document by Nigerian newspaper, Premium Times, showed a contradiction in the government's plan for Batch C.

It would be recalled that AllNews had reported in April 2020 that the minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, while speaking to newsmen after her meeting with federal lawmakers in Abuja at the time said categorically that "400, 000 beneficiaries are going to be enrolled very soon."

According to Farouq, the scheme is meant "to re-energise public service delivery in four key sectors: education, agriculture, health and tax".

However, for the 2021 fiscal year, the Nigerian government, under the ministry of humanitarian affairs, stated that there is an increase from 400,000 to 450,000.

The document showed that while the proposed recurrent expenditure for 2021 would remain unchanged, the estimate for personnel cost was increased by 2.31 per cent, from N166.3 billion in 2020 to N170.1 billion next year.

This rise is “because of (an) increase in the number of N-Power (N-Teach Hub) beneficiaries from 400,000 to 450,000,” the document said.

It is noteworthy that the N-Power programme presently has the N-Agro, N-Teach, N-Health, N-Build, N-Tech and Creative sub-components. And the graduate enrollees are entitled to a monthly stipend of N30, 000.

More than half of the total proposal for recurrent expenditure (that is 52.6 per cent) would be used for the implementation of programme components of the Job Creation Unit (JCU), including N-Power and Innovation Hubs.

This means that N-Power and its affiliate sub-programmes on job creation for the enrolment of 450,000 N-Power volunteers and training, tooling and mentoring of 54,000 non-graduate beneficiaries would cost about N200.3 billion.

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AllNews understands that the Nigerian govt plans to spend N400 billion on N-Power, TraderMoni, and other National Social Investment Programmes (NSIPs) in 2021.

Meanwhile, 500, 000 N-Power Batch A and B beneficiaries have been exited from the scheme by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs without  being transited to any entrepreneurial programme. They were also not given any exit package, much to the displeasure of these Nigerian youths.

Since application for N-Power Batch C recruitment closed in August, the next stage of the process is not clear, leaving the over 5 million applicants nervy.