500,000 NPower Volunteers Means Of Survival At Risk As FG Set To Terminate Contract

About 500,000 persons engaged in Nigeria’s social investment programme N-Power will have to look elsewhere for means of livelihood as the government is set to terminate their existing engagement.

Their current engagement, spokesperson for the humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development ministry Rhoda Iliya, said in a statement has contributed to “the administration’s vision of lifting 100 million people out of poverty by creating opportunities to enhance the productivity of the Nigerian youth.”

The programme has enrolled 500,000 beneficiaries thus far – 200,000 from Batch A which started in September 2016 and 300,000 from Batch B which kicked off in August 2018.

The beneficiaries were supposed to spend 24 months on the programme but Batch A beneficiaries have spent over 40 months. “Both Batches will soon be terminated according to the (press) release for the reasons given in the (press) release,” Salisu Na’inna Danbatta, the special adviser on media to the minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development minister Sadiya Farouq told The Guardian on Monday.

The statements were signed by Iliya. Iliya said in one of the statements that the current beneficiaries have overstayed in the programme “thereby denying other Nigerians an opportunity to access the programme and gain skills for entrepreneurship and employment.”