N-Power stream 2 today 07/02/2023 Update About four-month stipends

Photo Credit: Sahara Reported

N-Power stream 2 today 07/02/2023 Update About four-month stipends

"Please instruct Sadiya Umar Farouq and President Buhari to pay N-Power stream 2 their four-month stipends.

Since October 2022, we have worked tirelessly without a single paycheck. One of them told SaharaReporters, "People are really suftfering going to their PPA; please come to their aid because Buhari and Sadiya Umar Farouq don't have a single human sympathy in their hearts."

"The N-Power Program emerged in 2016 shortly after President Muhammadu Buhari took over power," stated another beneficiary. The agency was created to alleviate the effects of poverty and unemployment on our burgeoning youth population by acting as a national safety net.

"What I'm going to say now will look at how corruption has affected the N-Power Program and the recent discovery by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) of the alleged infusion of over 70,000 ghost workers into the scheme between 2016 and 2020."

“It is now evident that N-Power, an elite wealth recycling agency, appears to have secured a new platform for corruption that garroted Nigeria's subsidy program at a time when Batch C2 beneficiaries were owed nearly four months' worth of wages.

“It may be of interest to you to know that the billions of Naira budgeted solely for the N-Power Program have not improved the beneficiaries' standard of living or added any value to their lives.

"It is shameful and extremely painful that our government has withheld our four-month stipends without providing any kind of explanation."

The N-Power program has failed to live up to its promise since President Muhammadu Buhari established it in June 2016 to address youth unemployment and contribute to social development in the country.

Oladapo Oyebanji, better known as D'banj, a well-known musician, was recently detained by the ICPC after he was accused of defrauding the Nigerian government of hundreds of millions of naira intended for the N-Power project.

SaharaReporters learned shortly after his arrest how high-ranking government officials fraudulently diverted billions of naira into their own pockets by enrolling over 90,000 ghost workers in the program.

SaharaReporters reported in June 2021 that 14,000 N-Power beneficiaries owed five months' worth of payments.

Under the Social Investment Programme (SIP), the Nigerian government supports the N-Power initiative, which aims to empower young people.

Home Grown School Feeding, Tradermoni, Marketmoni, and the Conditional Cash Transfer are among the scheme's other 36 state programs.

SaharaReporters learned that Sadiya Farouq, the minister in charge of the government's social investment program, had been attempting to halt some of the programs that were part of the scheme ever since it was transferred to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management.

She had also refused to release funds for the school feeding program in some states, in addition to announcing that beneficiaries would be laid off.

SaharaReporters was told by a source at the humanitarian ministry once that top government officials in President Buhari's administration had been using cronies to steal funds from social intervention programs.

Source: Sahara Report