By; Bala B. Bitrus, Minna
The implementation of the federal government’s N-Power scheme may have run into early hitches in Niger state as only six hundred youths have so far been registered across the state.
Campaign for Democracy, (CD) an advocacy body for good governance, rule of law has sounded its gong, raising alarm over what it described as poor handling of the enumeration exercise for the mammoth unemployed youths in the state.
The N-Power scheme is a federal government’s scheme aimed at providing sustainable socio economic development and empowerment platform for the unemployed graduate youths in Nigeria.
According to the CD, out of the targeted 5000 youths expected to be captured in the net for the scheme in the state, just a meagre six hundred youths had so far been enlisted largely due to poor information dissemination about the scheme as no enlightenment about the programme was done for the targeted youths in the state to leverage on.
“It is surprising that only about 600 were successful of the numerous applicants. This is largely due to the poor handling and lack of coordination about the scheme”, the CD alleged in a statement by its Vice President, Comrade Abdulwaheed Adeniran.
Though the Coordinator of the N-Power scheme in the state, Affiniki Dauda could not be reached to defend the allegations by the CD, an official of the scheme in their office along Bosso Estate explained that most of those who applied to be registered were found to have been engaged in some form of employment and were drawing salaries as against the grain of the N-Power scheme which is only for the unemployed graduate youths.
But Abdulwaheed in a statement argued that time was running out and Niger state could loose its share of the federal government’s programme as a result of the poor planning and execution for the targeted people hence their resolve to cry out so that the mistakes done could be corrected before it gets too late.
“We in Campaign for Democracy are saying that information on the scheme has been poorly and haphazardly handled by the Coordinator of N-Power scheme in Niger state” he said.
He disclosed that the CD had after noticing that there were no proper awareness about the scheme in the state, the CD took the matter up with the relevant authorities in Abuja but regretted that nothing appears to have been done to rectify the steps. He said resort to the use of the media was to bring the matter up to the public gallery.
Efforts to get the views of the Niger state Coordinator of the scheme, (N-Power) Hon. Affiniki Dauda was not successful.
On several visits to the office along Bosso Estate, Minna our correspondent was always informed that she has travelled outside the state or gone to Abuja.
The N-Power scheme is for graduates youths who are not employed.
