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Tag: Afolabi Imoukhuede

  • N-Power begins physical verification of 300,000 volunteers on Dec. 4

    N-Power begins physical verification of 300,000 volunteers on Dec. 4

    The 300,000 successful candidates pre-selected under the Federal Government’s N-Power Scheme will undergo its physical verification phase from Dec. 4 to Dec. 14 in the 774 local government areas of the country.

    The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation/Youth Employment, Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede said the verification would be done with the N-Power stakeholders in the states such as the National Orientation Agency, N-Power State team, National Assembly Monitors and Observers.

    Imoukhuede explained that pre-selection could not be equated to final recruitment as those who fell short of the verification criteria and made faulty declarations in their applications would still be disqualified.

    Accordingly, the presidential aide noted that after the compilation of successfully verified candidates, the final selection would be done followed by the deployment of the volunteers in the Agro, Teach, and Health categories across the country.

    He noted that out of 2.54 million applicants, 2.25 million had their Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) validated prior to the assessment test phase while only 1.75 million responded to invitations to write tests.

    In the State-by-State application breakdown, the North West geo-political zone had 33,039 applicants from Jigawa; 113,960 from Kaduna; 97,748 from Kano; 40,742 from Katsina; 30,975 from Kebbi; 22,501 from Sokoto and 32,186 from Zamfara.

    From the North East, 50,552 applications came from Adamawa; Bauchi had 51,920; Borno had 55,264; Gombe had 27,980; Taraba had 36,987 while Yobe had 32,201.

    In North Central, FCT led with 120,198 applications followed by Benue with 89,734 and Kwara with 77,338 while Niger had 73,236 applications; Nasarawa with 72,732; Plateau with 68,955 and Kogi with 61,789.

    Enugu State led the applications in the South East with 81,891 followed by Anambra with 61,075 and Imo with 60,283; while Abia had 54,216 and Ebonyi with 39,030 applications.

    In the South West, Lagos had 174,994 applications; Oyo had 133,281; Osun had 87,281; Ekiti had 37,594; Ogun had 74,940 while Ondo had 69,224 applications.

    The highest applications from the South South came from Rivers with 145,773 followed by Delta with 106,509 and Edo with 63,507. Others are Akwa Ibom with 56,143; Bayelsa with 23,659 and Cross River with 49,596.

    From the statistics, states with highest applications were Lagos, Rivers, Oyo, FCT and Kaduna in while states with the lowest were Sokoto, Bayelsa, Gombe, Kebbi and Zamfara.

    Imoukhuede observed that the selection process was transparent with the first priority being the full validation of BVN to payment account details of applicants, to avoid a repeat of inability to pay any of the new volunteers as a result of unmatched payment details.

    He further stated that other factors considered were equity and fairness by linking selection to population, using federal constituencies and addressing demand distribution of unemployed graduates across the country.

    He added that the process considered correcting the deployment/utilization challenges arising from the 2016 edition as well as rural-urban distribution balance where priority was given to rural areas especially N-Agro applicants.

    The first batch of 200,000 graduates will, in December 2017, begin their second year of the two-year paid volunteer scheme, while the process of mobilising and deploying non-graduate programme began about a month ago.

    NAN

  • 60 volunteers enter N-Power black book – Presidential aide

    60 volunteers enter N-Power black book – Presidential aide

    No fewer than 60 volunteers in the Federal Government’s job creation scheme for youths are on payment hold and may be prosecuted for fraud, the Presidential aide on Job Creation, Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede, said on Monday.

    He gave the indication while addressing 5,559 N-Power volunteers in Kwara at the Banquet Hall of the Government House, Ilorin.

    At the event, he gave July ending as deadline for those experiencing payment issues to resolve them or be removed from the programme.

    Imoukhuede had led a team of Monitoring and Evaluation officials to assess the performance of the volunteers in the state as well as mandate the state’s institutional partners to take absolute charge of the volunteers.

    According to the aide, many volunteers have been collecting unbroken stipends of N30,000 monthly without reporting for work which discourages serious volunteers from giving in their best.

    He said the 60 volunteers already identified nationwide would be used to set examples, noting that the programme was not a cake-sharing or cake-collection scheme.

    He said that no fewer than 363 volunteers deployed in Kwara were  ghosts and did not exist in the programme, adding that those found guilty of absenteeism would be forced to return all stipends received and prosecuted.

    He explained that volunteers were the cause of non-receipt of their stipends because they failed to validate their financial records more than seven months into the graduate scheme.

    He further dispelled insinuations of irregularity in the payments of stipends nationwide, explaining that disparity in dates of payment was to accommodate newly validated volunteers.

    “There is no irregularity in the payment of stipends; we do not discriminate against states.

    “The reason for what you tag irregularity is that we are trying to update your accounts.

    “Our goal is that everyone will receive all stipends unbroken,’’ he added.

    Imoukhuede said that N-Power was a lifeline extended to youths by President Muhammadu Buhari and Acting President Yemi Osinbajo as a platform for learning, working and gaining entrepreneurship.

    He said it was technology-enhanced  and designed programme where the graduates were expected to be technology-compliant which informed the addition of a device for learning and data collection to increase volunteers’ employability skills.

    “There will be evaluation of performance through the devices.

    “Google and Microsoft Academy have provided lots of learning materials in the devices for your benefits, so you have to take the devices seriously as your daily manual,’’ he advised.

    Earlier at a stakeholders’ meeting, Imoukhuede emphasized that July ending was the last chance given to all with stipend issues to resolve them or they would be written to withdraw from the scheme.

    “Those of you yet unpaid are enjoying several months of grace.

    “End of July is the last chance and if they are unable to reconcile their accounts we will call them to exit the programme and 263 of them are involved in Kwara,’’ he noted.

    On the deployment of non-professionals to N-Teach, N-Agro and N-Health, the presidential aide noted that volunteers were sent as assistants in the disciplines, adding that “the scheme is qualification agnostic and we deployed to areas of need’’.

    He recalled that the Federal Government’s N6.9 billion monthly investment from where Kwara economy had sucked in N160 million via the volunteers, was not a joke.

    “The beauty of the scheme is that rather than fund state treasury, the money goes straight to volunteers’ pockets from where it trickles down to the economy of their rural families and enhances their saving culture.

    “That is why the scheme earns a space in the economic recovery programme of the Federal Government,’’ he said.

    Imoukhuede advised the state’s institutional partners to ensure effective monitoring and discipline, adding that they would be shortchanging the state and the rural communities if they failed in such task.

    The Special Assistant to the President on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Mr Mohammed Brimah, tagged the more than 5,000 graduate-volunteers in Kwara as special, having been selected from 7,000 applicants from the state.

    Brimah, an indigene of the state, urged the volunteers to remember that they were the state ambassadors but had three other persons that could replace them if found wanting.

    “N-Power has given you an opportunity to impact on your community.

    “Visit the #muchmore tag on the portal where volunteers share their contributions to add your own contributions for the nation to also see your positive impacts in Kwara,’’ Brimah added.

    The State Focal Person for N-Power and Permanent Secretary, Youth and Sports, Elder Ayobola Samuel, said that the volunteers had reduced the manpower gaps in education, agriculture and health facilities in the state.

    He hailed the Federal Government for the initiative and gave the assurance that the state government would do everything possible to enable the scheme and its participants to succeed.

  • Plateau records success stories in job creation scheme

    Plateau records success stories in job creation scheme

    N-Power volunteers offering community service in their birth place, alma mater and others who embraced entrepreneurship and became owners of integrated farms in different parts in Plateau, have recorded success stories .

    Mr James Francis, a Chemistry graduate from the University of Jos, is a volunteer in the laboratory of the Primary Health Care Centre, Bukuru, Jos South Local Government Area, where he was born, and the management said it was pleased with his services.

    Mr Samuel Dapil, visually impaired at two, is a toast of the Gindiri Material Centre for the Handicapped (GMCH), in Mangu Local Government Area where he teaches sciences and mathematics to blind children as well as brails the subjects.

    At the Nomadic School, Mandarken, a remote community in Bokkos Local Government Area(LGA), three N-Power volunteers have combined with the only three staff members of the school to turn around the learning fortunes of some 89 pupils.

    Same for Edward Dabi, an N-Power  volunteer in Bokkos, who has spent half of his stipends to open a mini integrated farm, cultivating 2.4 hectares of rice, sizable portion of potatoes and maize farm and animal husbandry.

    Another volunteer, Jethro Jacobs, an animal scientist, opened a veterinary clinic at Mangu with stipends he received as N-Teach volunteer in the community.

    The successes were captured when the N-Power Monitoring and Evaluation Team, led by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job creation, Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede, visited the volunteers’ places of assignment in the state.

    At the PHC, Bukuru, Francis said he had opened an education trust fund in his bank where he was remitting N12,000 of his monthly stipends, to pay for a post-graduate programme in community health at the end of the volunteer programme.

    “I have been part of the programme for six months now but I have been in this lab for the past five months and I have been trained in a lot of things here in the lab.

    “My lab manager has actually given me a department within the lab and I take care of some special patients, documenting their test results.

    “One very important part of my stay here and the most important is that I was born in this clinic. So I feel very happy to render services here.

    “Due to the course of study, my lab manager and the focal person have advised me to go for my post-graduate in community health.

    “And I have opened a trust fund account with my bank and out of the stipends  I get every month, I have monthly savings towards that project.

    “Every month I drop N12,000 there and by January, I will have something substantial to go for my community health programme,’’ he said.

    At the school for the blind, Dapil described his stay as very wonderful, saying “ I like what I am doing and I am so impressed with the teaching.

    “I feel that I am helping and serving my country and I am giving my best so far’’.

    The coordinator of the centre, Mr Thompson Damwesh, said Dapil was an asset to the centre.

    According to him, “he is doing enough in the area of brailing.

    “He is a specialist in sciences and mathematics and he brails mathematics and sciences.

    “He is the only person who can do this in the country.’’

    At the Nomadic School, Mandarken, a volunteer, Mr Alfred Mwanjel, who read Biology Education at the Federal College of Education, Pankshin in 2011, said he intended to extend his services to a nearby school to teach the pupils of both schools how to co-exist as Christians and Muslims.

    At the Women-in-Health Centre in Marish-Kwatas, Bokkos area, a rural community, Miss Mary Musa, a 2014 Environmental Health professional, expressed  appreciation of the Buhari administration for the job creation scheme.

    She said she started a private investment with her stipends and supported her parents and siblings financially since she became a volunteer.

    The presidential aide on job creation expressed satisfaction with the entrepreneurial spirit of the volunteers and encouraged others to be creative and apply the same spirit, to improve their lives.

  • FG gives two-week ultimatum to Akwa Ibom on N-Power volunteers

    FG gives two-week ultimatum to Akwa Ibom on N-Power volunteers

    The Federal Government on Tuesday issued a two-week ultimatum to the Akwa Ibom government to fully deploy N-Power volunteers in the state or lose its slots to other states.

    The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation and Youth Employment, Mr. Afolabi Imoukhuede, issued the warning at the state institutional stakeholders meeting in Uyo.

    After visiting some schools where the volunteers were supposedly deployed, the Monitoring and Evaluation (M and E) team, led by Imoukhuede expressed displeasure with the execution of the scheme in the state.

    Imoukhuede requested for the schedule of posting for the volunteers immediately, saying the federal government would no longer continue to pay volunteers, who had yet to be deployed seven months after being paid.

    “We need to get a full deployment report in two weeks or the stipends of the volunteers will be put on hold,” he directed.

    The presidential aide said another assessment team would visit the state at the end of the ultimatum to ensure that the right thing was done.

    He also said that the relevant ministries of Agriculture, Education and Health should ensure full monitoring of the scheme.

    NAN

     

  • Ebonyi earns N600m through N-Power scheme – Presidential aide

    Ebonyi earns N600m through N-Power scheme – Presidential aide

    No fewer than N600 million has been injected into the economy of Ebonyi through the Federal Government’s job creation scheme, N-Power, since December 2016, a Presidential aide has said.

    The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation and Youth Employment, Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede, said this during the scheme’s stakeholders’ meeting in Abakaliki.

    According to him, the amount is the total payments made to volunteers in the state in the past seven months of its operation.

    He, however, noted that in spite of the investments, the volunteers had yet to come to terms with the vision of the programme resulting in chronic absenteeism from places of deployment.

    Imoukhuede said that the Federal Government would no longer tolerate truancy, adding that 21 volunteers in different states were on suspension for various infractions in the programme.

    He observed that while some volunteers had earned stipends in the state without working, another in Taraba, Mr Daniel Joshua, returned two months stipends paid to him to the Federal Government’s Single Treasury Account (TSA).

    He said the volunteer got a new job and resigned from N-Power two months ago but sent a message that he was paid for two months that he had left the scheme.

    Consequently, he requested for the TSA to enable him to return the money that he did not earn appropriately to the government which was obliged him.

    The Presidential aide, currently on Monitoring and Evaluation in Ebonyi, confirmed that Joshua on Friday sent him a scanned copy of the teller he used to repay N60,000 to the TSA.

    He said N-Power was a programme to facilitate the employability skills of volunteers and advised any participant who had secured employment since joining the scheme to emulate the good example to create chance for other job seekers.

    Imoukhuede hailed the attitude to work and entrepreneurship of one Titus Nwali, a HND Mechanical Engineer of Federal Polytechnic Afikpo, on N-Teach at the Amaizu/Amangbala Central School, Afikpo.

    Nwali, besides being regular in schoool, said he had opened a shop with his stipend and retired to it after school every day to earn more money for the upkeep of his family.

    The Presidential aide was, however, unhappy with the attendance of volunteers at the nearby  Amuro Mgbo Community Secondary School and said that two truant volunteers there would be punished for indiscipline.

    At the Afikpo North Local Government Headquarters where 18 volunteers were posted to for N-Agro, he said the agriculture volunteers in the state were under-utilised and directed their withdrawal and re-posting to ADP.

    The Ebonyi Commissioner for Economic Empowerment and Job Creation, Chief Moses Nomeh, promised to address the challenges facing the volunteers to enable the state to get maximum benefits from the scheme.

    According to Nomeh, the state will not tolerate non-performance caused by the un-seriousness of the volunteers, adding “this is a serious programme and one should not expect to reap where one did not sow.’’

  • Three N-power volunteers establish mini-laboratory at Otokutu PHC

    Three N-power volunteers establish mini-laboratory at Otokutu PHC

    Three female volunteers in the N-Health programme have established a mini laboratory at the Primary Health Centre, Otokutu, Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta.

    The volunteers are Jennifer Angese (2013 Pharmacology graduate of Delta State University); Mary James (2011 Microbiology graduate of Unijos); and Harriet Azurundu (2001, BSc Microbiology – Imo State University – and 2008 MLSc –UPTH).

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the trio contributed money to purchase the equipment and establish the laboratory in April, barely four months of their deployment to the PHC to provide medical outreach to the rural community.

    Narrating their experiences when the Monitoring and Evaluation team of N-Power visited the centre, James said they felt pity for the community which had the centre for long but travelled far to access medical facilities.

    She said that rather than seek deployment they made contributions from their token to purchase the equipment in bits in order to make meaningful impact in the community.

    According to her, the equipment comprising both electrical and manual types, are worth about N100,000 but that some tests are delayed in the centre due to epileptic power and lack of alternative power source.

    She said that her colleagues were teaching in private schools and receiving pittance prior to the N-power job, but noted that the scheme had offered them the opportunity to practice their profession and gain experience.

    James said the community was excited about the development but had not made additional input due to poverty, “but we hope someone, someday will do that for the sake of the rural people’’.

    She said that due to epileptic power the lab always concluded the samples tests, and issued the results the same day of collection.

    She said some patients were referred to bigger facilities if they had to wait for the results for more than a day, “but we work for as long as possible to make patients’ results ready’’.

    Azurundu, another volunteer, added that since the provision of the laboratory no fewer than 70 patients including pregnant women, the aged and children had their blood, urine and other samples tested for proper diagnosis and treatment.

    “We assumed duty in February and since we discovered that there was no laboratory section here we decided to set up one to assist in proper diagnosis and treatment of patients.

    “The lab has been of great help; it has improved the services of the health workers in the health centre.

    “Since we started lab tests we have had almost 70 patients benefitting but we have attended to others without actually putting them in our records,’’ Azurundu said.

    She said that apart from the help that the people needed it had been her dream to be able to touch lives in one way or the other and “N-Power has given me that room and opportunity to touch lives’’.

    On her part, Angese noted that the patients were often tested free or charged only 50 per cent of the cost of the examination to encourage others to access adequate medicare due to poverty.

    The volunteers thanked President Muhammadu Buhari and Acting President Yemi Osinbajo for initiating the N-Power programme because it had touched so many lives.

    They acknowledged that from the stipends they were able also to help in family upkeep and support their siblings in their education.

    The volunteers said they were not expecting the federal government to terminate the programme after two years, but rather to strengthen it because “we will not like to go back after two years doing nothing.

    “We hope it will continue in a better way.’’

    NAN also reports that the laboratory is equipped with syringes, piercing needles, various reagents, glucometer, cotton swaps, feed stains, oil immersion, microscope, mirror, plastercine, capillary tubes.

    Others are blood-count equipment, methylated spirit, HIV reagents, puppets, EDTA collection bottles, hand gloves, wither kits, counting chamber, improvised slide racks, an electric-powered centrifuge as well as a hand-powered centrifuge.

    Mr John James, the husband of Mary James, who visited the centre at the time of the monitoring, thanked the federal government for its transparency in the recruitment of the volunteers.

    John, a Veterinary graduate-turned logistics specialist, who lost his job in December due to the death of his employer, said that the wife had been sustaining the family from her stipend.

    “N-Power is another door that has opened for our family and I encourage the volunteers not to focus attention on the stipend but ensure that they become true professionals during the two-year programme.

    “I thank God Almighty and his instrument, President Muhammadu Buhari, and pray that God grants him sound health and also his Vice, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, for this programme,’’ he said.

    The Presidential aide on Job Creation, Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede, expressed gratitude to the volunteers for their painstaking effort to live out the dream of the programme by impacting on the society.

    He urged them to continue in their stride as by their conduct they had opened new vistas in their lives.

    Imoukhuede also expressed gladness with the performance of the volunteers in Nana Model Secondary and Primary Schools, Warri, and those at the Central Hospital Warri.

    However, he told the Medical Director of the Warri Hospital to cancel the one-day off granted to the volunteers weekly since the programme was a full time volunteer scheme without shifts, night or weekend duty.

    At a private investor integrated fish farm in Warri, Imoukhuede thanked the proprietor for making the massive facility available for the N-Agro participants to acquire more practical knowledge on fisheries.

    An N-Agro volunteer, Mrs Ese Adiomamore, told NAN that the scheme was a sure way of achieving the self-sufficiency in food production and economic diversification programme of the present administration.

  • N-Power: beneficiaries count gains after five months of empowerment

    N-Power: beneficiaries count gains after five months of empowerment

    Some beneficiaries of the Federal Government N-Power under the National Social Investment Programme (N-NIP), have started counting the gains of the programme after five months of empowerment.

    N-Power is one of the components of N-SIP, aimed at empowering Nigerians both graduates and non-graduates between the ages of 18 and 35 by paying them N30, 000 monthly over a period of two years.

    Some of the beneficiaries, who spoke with NAN on Wednesday in Abuja, said that the programme had established them and taken them out of poverty.

    Nwanjel Alfred, a beneficiary of N-Power graduate scheme in Plateau said he was employed under the scheme and posted to a Nomadic Primary school in the state as a teacher.

    “I graduated in 2011, did NYSC in 2012 and I was not employed for five years; I studied Biology Education but have passion for agriculture.

    “There is no capital to start agric project but as soon as I started receiving my stipend in December 2016,  I went into farming.

    “I have been able to plant and harvest 15 bags of Irish Potatoes seedlings and I thank God the potatoes are doing well.

    “Hopefully in July, I should be able to harvest 50 bags from the farm,’’ he said.

    The beneficiary, however, appealed to the government to ensure the sustainability of the programme by giving them full employment after the two years duration of the programme.

    Similarly, a beneficiary from Taraba, Jeremiah Daniel who graduated in 2008, said he became a photographer as there was no job.

    “A photographer turns a teacher, courtesy of N-power and I have been able to embark on contributory scheme from my stipend.

    “We are six posted to a secondary in the state, we contribute N30,000 (all the stipend) and I have received N180,000 from the first round of contribution and I want to open a cyber café.

    “I have been able to render such service in a rural community in addition to the photography,’’ he said.

    Daniel said that the government had promised to also give them digital device as part of the programme to empower them technologically.

    He said that the government had been paying N4,500 monthly to a company that would supply the electronic gadgets, which they promised would be ready for disbursement in June.

    Daniel, however, advised youths to desist from involving in social vices and engage in business to support and make them self-reliant.

    Also narrating his experience, Okoka Owa, a beneficiary of N-power in Cross River, thanked the Federal Government for coming up with such a programme.

    “I have been able to save N10,000 monthly from the N30,000.

    “I want to open a food stuff shop from the money I will get from the contribution,’’ she said.

    Meanwhile, Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation (N-Power Scheme), said no fewer than 200,000 out of 500,000 youths targeted had been empowered under the N-power programme in the country.

    The N-Power programme recruits and trains young unemployed graduates as teachers, agricultural extension workers and health support workers, etc.

    The presidential aide said the N-power scheme was being implemented under the N-SIP as promised by President Muhammadu Buhari during his campaign to help poor and vulnerable Nigerians.

  • N-Power money is for work done, Buhari tells volunteers

    N-Power money is for work done, Buhari tells volunteers

    President Muhammadu Buhari has reminded volunteers in the N-power scheme that the financial benefits they receive from the programme “is money paid for work done”.

    Mr. Afolabi Imoukhuede, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation said this when the scheme’s assessment and evaluation team paid a courtesy visit to the Kano State governor Abdullahi Ganduje on Wednesday night.

    He said: “There is a message that Mr. President has asked us to pass in every state we visit.

    “It is that please this is money paid for work done; this is an investment in their lives.

    “And this is an investment that, for the first time in many years, is going directly to the beneficiaries and not through any third party, not through any gateway.’’

    According to the presidential aide in Kano no fewer than 1,200 volunteers are being paid stipends earlier in the year.

    Imokhuede said that as at April about N0.58 billion had entered into the state’s economy through the beneficiaries that were getting paid regularly.

    He said that at inception 25,600 applications were received from Kano State out of which about 11,000 were for graduate recruitment and about 13,000 applicants were non-graduates.

    He said Kano State was offered 4,900 placements in the first phase but noted that 3,868 of them were verified for payment by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBS).

    He said that the 13,000 non-graduate applicants in the state would be mobilized in batches as from May.

    Imokhuede noted that those graduates who scaled the verification besides getting their regular N30,000 monthly stipends would also receive the credit device facility under the scheme from June.

    “From June we will take delivery of the devices and shall tell them where to pick them up,’’ he said.

    He said that underscored the President’s message and urged the volunteers to work hard and take the programme seriously as the funds got to them directly.

    He said the scheme’s monitoring framework was in place and that defaulters would not only be delisted but also penalized.

    Imoukhuede said the scheme would soon resolve all payment challenges of Kano volunteers adding that once resolved all their stipend backlog would be settled.

    He said that the growth of the economy led to the job creation scheme adding that what the president had done with the N-power was a lifeline to unemployed youths and not an end in itself.

    “It is a lifeline because it is a paid volunteer programme for 24 months to enhance their employability through being deployed to community schools, farms and health programmes,’’ he said.

    The presidential aide said the appeal that Kano be given special consideration due to its population was noted by the presidency and gave the assurance that it would be considered when the portal reopens in June.

    Responding, Ganduje said the scheme was the best thing that had happened to the economy of the country in recent times.

    The governor said that N-Power was capable of reviving the economy but advised that a template for its sustenance be created for it not to fail.

    He urged the youths to recognize that the benefits they derived came from President Buhari and that they imbibed the discipline of the president in order to move the country forward.

    The Senior Special Assistant on Special Intervention Programmes in Kano, Hajiya Aisha Jafaru, noted that the success of the N-Power scheme in the state was heartwarming.

    She, however, urged the Presidency to increase the number of volunteer recruits in the state and also resolve the issue of unpaid stipends to about 632 volunteers.

     

  • FG begins N-power Non-graduates Scheme in July

    FG begins N-power Non-graduates Scheme in July

    The Presidency says the Federal Government will begin the non-graduates scheme component of the N-Power programme in July.

    Mr. Afolabi Imoukhuede, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation (N-Power Scheme) disclosed this at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja.

    He said N-Power had two broad components, namely: graduate and non-graduate schemes.

    “We are hopeful that by June/July we should deploy those ones in different batches across the country and FCT.

    “So it is worthy of note that those who applied for that programme (non-graduates) should just stay rested.

    “The fact that we have not deployed you doesn’t mean that we have forgotten you.

    “We have all your details, we have all your contacts and we will deal with them.’’

    Imoukhuede explained that the non-graduate component of the programme was designed to empower the beneficiaries with vocational skills.

    “The non-graduate component is more of skills development and vocation programme.

    “For vocational training, we have construction work, automobile technicians, technology, which is hardware and software.

    “They will come in for a programme and three months they will go and (also do) apprenticeship for nine months.

    “It is like one year engagement for them; while they are undergoing training they will get some stipends and they we will also provide them with necessary tools and consumables.’’

    Imoukhuede added that the scheme would also partner with employers for the apprenticeship programme and also give the volunteers some stipends.

    According to him, that type of programme will not only be empowering the trainees, but transferring skills to them for life as well.

    The presidential aide said the office had been working with relevant stakeholders to ensure successful implementation of the scheme.

    “We have been working behind the scene; we have signed MoU with our partners, Automotive Development Council of Nigeria, for the automotive training.

    “We have got quite some big partners and we are just finalising all our arrangements. ‘’

    He said while the process of procurement of the needed goods and consumables were going on in the office, the fast-track process was also going on in the Ministry of Budget and National Planning as well.

    According to him, N- power is the job creation component of the Social Investment Programme (SIP) of the current administration.

    He said the office started working on the implementation as soon as the present administration was inaugurated on May 29, 2015.

    He said by December 2015, the administration had come up with a blueprint on how to keep the promise it made to implement the scheme.

    Imoukhuede described SIP as the most ambitious programme of the Federal Government, adding that so far, government had committed N500 billion to the programme.

    “The programme received N500 billion in 2016, but unfortunately, it came at the time when the economy was grappling with low revenue,’’ he said.

    NAN reports that the social investment programme has five components.

    They include the N-Power, being the job creation component; Home Grown School Feeding; the Conditional Cash Transfer; and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP).

    The last component is the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Junior.