The federal government (FG) of Nigeria has given reasons as to why there will be an indefinite suspension of the N-Power scheme Indefinite following the recent announcement made on Saturday citing various flaws and irregularities within the program.
The N-Power scheme was introduced in 2016 by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari to address youth unemployment and promote social development and undoubtedly, the program has provided jobs to a number of young Nigerians in various sectors, including education, health, agriculture, and technology.
As gathered, the indefinite suspension was announced by Betta Edu who is the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation stating that the government had launched a thorough investigation into the use of funds allocated to the scheme since its establishment.
Edu highlighted several key concerns, including the presence of beneficiaries who are not fulfilling their assigned duties yet continue to receive monthly stipends and beneficiaries who claim to be actively working within the programme but are found to be absent from their designated places of assignment.
“We must go back to look into N-Power and understand what the problems are, so we will basically suspend the programme for now until we are done with a proper investigation into the utilisation of funds in the N-Power programme,” Minister Edu explained.
“We want to know how many persons are basically on the programme right now, how many persons are owed, and the amount they are owed. We are totally restructuring the N-Power and expanding it,” he added.
