Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation and Youth Employment, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s-led administration will fulfill all promises made to the youths and Nigerians before the 2015 presidential polls.
Imoukhuede said this when he addressed N-Power volunteers in Ebonyi at the end of the evaluation and monitoring of the programme in the state by federal and state stakeholders. He said that the administration’s Social Investment Programmes covered all strata of the society, including children, youths, women and micro and medium scale enterprises.
“Every promise we make to you, there is a strong commitment to fulfilling them. “You have to stay committed to the programme,’’ he told the volunteers. According to him, besides the N30,000 monthly stipend, each volunteer will also receive a device being paid for by the Federal Government at N4,500 per month.
He, however, told them that the device had multiple-applications including a programme that would facilitate their monitoring. He said: “You will be monitored by the Federal Governments agency in charge of this programme through the device you are going to get. “Be warned and stay tuned with your portal as you can be withdrawn from the scheme if we find out that you absent yourself from work or you fail to update your knowledge and skills by not digesting the manuals in the device.
’’ The Presidential aide noted that 2,620 out of the 3,643 volunteers in the state were accommodated in the first batch of the device distribution. He said that while a last chance had been given for 216 volunteers who had not updated their bank details, 114 who had no details at all might be delisted. He added that the 114 ostensibly were not participating in the scheme, adding that even if their details were cleared they would show proof of work in the past six months before they could be paid. On the allegation that volunteers were paying money to an individual for clearance, he said the payment was not known to the scheme.
The Presidential aide warned that the government would go after anyone who tried to extort the volunteers, and urged them not to respond to such exploitations. “None of such payments is authorised by us but we will not criticise any voluntary contribution made by you in form of cooperatives to enhance your employability at the end of the programme,’’ he said.
The Ebonyi State Commissioner for Economic Empowerment and Job Creation, Chief Moses Nomeh, advised the volunteers to be serious with the scheme as there were many jobless youths willing to take up their positions. Nomeh said that no fewer than 8,000 applications were received for N-Power from Ebonyi in 2016 while graduates who had applied for the ongoing 2017 enrolment form in the state had reached 23,435. The commissioner thanked President Buhari and Acting President Yemi Osinbajo for initiating the scheme which had provided solutions to the unemployment situation in the country.
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