Following the government’s indefinite suspension of the N-Power programme, over a million Nigerians have lost their jobs under the plan.
With beneficiaries receiving a monthly stipend of N30,000, the N-Power project was created by the administration of the late President Muhammadu Buhari to alleviate youth unemployment.
It is a part of the National Social Investment Programme implemented by the previous administration, which involved the onboarding of 1.5 million unemployed Nigerian youths (mostly graduates), providing capacity building, targeted tenured employment, and structured onboarding into various career paths.
The Humanitarian ministry in Abuja provided numbers in February of this year that showed the project had enrolled 200,000 youths in Batch A, 300,000 in Batch B, 510,000 in Batch C1, and 490,000 in Batch C2.
Although the number of beneficiaries who had left the programme could not be confirmed at the time this report was filed, it was learned that nearly all of the enrollees in batches C1 and C2—or around one million people—were still enrolled in the programme.
Numerous N-Power recipients work as primary school teachers all around the nation.
But on Saturday, the Federal Government declared that the plan will be suspended indefinitely and promised to look into how the money was used.
During a live appearance on TVC News, Betta Edu, the minister of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation, announced the program’s temporary suspension.
Edu claimed that the programme had been tainted by anomalies and added that the government had started an investigation into how the monies had been used ever since the program’s commencement.
She continued by saying that although some of the program’s recipients were not found where they were supposed to be working, they were nevertheless receiving monthly stipends.
Edu said that some N-Power recipients who were supposed to leave the project in 2022 were instead continuously being paid.
She said, “We must go back to examine N-Power and comprehend what the issues are; hence, we will essentially halt the programme for the time being until we have completed adequate research into the utilisation of monies by the N-Power scheme.
“We want to know how many people are now participating in the initiative in general, as well as how many people owe money and how much. We are completely expanding and overhauling N-Power.
Many things are happening. We encountered individuals who were supposed to have completed the training since last year but who continue to represent themselves as instructors.
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“Occasionally, when we reach out to the schools or locations where they work, they are not there. They keep insisting that they are owed an eight or nine-month stipend even if they are not currently employed. A little over 80% of them are claiming salary despite not working.
The humanitarian ministry described how some of its officials were under investigation in answer to a query from The PUNCH in December 2022, indicating that the N-Power scheme had been tainted by anomalies.
The ministry responded by stating that it was aware of publications reporting current investigations in relation to fraud charges in the scheme. The answer was signed by the most recent permanent secretary, Nasir Sani-Gwarzo.
“We wish to state as follows: the ministry has deployed a well-rounded mechanism for the selection of eligible beneficiaries from all over the country, and this has been in place since the beginning of the programme,” it stated.
“Programme beneficiaries are onboarded, trained, and deployed to primary assignment locations that have been preselected in collaboration with our service provider.
“The situation was immediately brought to the ICPC for a thorough investigation when it came to our attention that some employees of the payment service provider who were involved in the payment operations of the beneficiaries may have engaged in sharp practises.
We are aware that specific individuals have been requested to be questioned as part of the current investigations.
According to the former permanent secretary, the ministry thoroughly reinforced its procedures to get rid of any irregularities and stop similar incidents from happening again.
“To this end, we are working closely with the ICPC to support the investigation’s successful conclusion,” he continued.
“The public may wish to note that over time, the ministry has involved other government MDAs, security agencies, and Civil Society Organisations in monitoring and compliance checks across the 36 state N-Power and other National Social Investment Programmes, namely the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, and the Conditional Cash Transfer.
We want to reassure all N-Power beneficiaries of the Federal Government’s ongoing support for the scheme and the ensuing activation of the exit/of-boarding channels.
All programme beneficiaries had also been exhorted by the ministry to keep giving their all in their primary assignments.
The government had said that “all monthly stipends will continue to be paid in accordance with programme expectations.”
