Rebecca Ejifoma writes that the federal government-backed N-Power programme, a pro-youth flagship social investment project, was designed for both young graduates and non-graduate to harness their skills for innovation, entrepreneurship and productivity
A powerful vision pulls in ideas, people and other resources. It creates the energy and will to make change happen. It inspires individuals, diverse stakeholders and organisations to commit, to persist and to give their best. Cut to the bone, this is the story of the N-Power Programme – a pro-youth flagship social investment project of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration – conceived in 2016.
The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, ably led by the Honourable Minister Sadiya Umar Farouq, supervises the N-Power programme – a job creation and empowerment initiative. It is designed for both young graduates and non-graduates in order to harness their skills for innovation, entrepreneurship and productivity.
The targeted sectors are in the nation’s critical areas of needs in education, agriculture, health, technology, creative industry, construction and artisanal industries. Harnessing the nation’s young demography through appropriate skill development efforts provides an opportunity to simultaneously achieve national inclusion and productivity.
The key N-Power Programmes include: N-Power Agro, N-Power Tax, N-Power Build, N-Power Creative, N-Power Health, N-Power Teach, N-Power Tech Hardware and N-Power Tech Software. The modular programmes under N-Power ensure that each participant learns and practices most of what is necessary to find or create work. The N-Power Volunteer Corp involves a massive deployment of 500,000 trained graduates who will assist to improve the inadequacies in our public services in education, health and civic education. Some of these graduates will also help in actualising Nigeria’s economic and strategic aspirations of achieving food security and self-sufficiency.
The federal government inaugurated the third batch (Batch C) of the N-Power exercise on the National Social Investment Management System (NASIMS), on Thursday, March 11, 2021, in Abuja. NASIMS is the central management platform for the administration and coordination of the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP) under the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. The inauguration was chaired by the Honourable Minister Sadiya Umar Farouq.
An elated Farouq told her rapt audience that the inauguration was in continuation of the ongoing strategy by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government to lift 100 million people out of poverty in ten years.
She then revealed that Batches ‘A’ and ‘B’ had already been implemented, stating that the 500,000 beneficiaries will benefit in the first stream of the ongoing process for batch ‘C’, while the same number of Nigerians will benefit in the second stream.
Her words: “I am delighted that we are gathered today for the launch of the Batch ‘C’ on the National Social Investment Management System (NASIMS). The N-Power cluster, which is a combination of many sub-cluster initiatives, is aimed at providing opportunities in skills acquisition, competency building, and entrepreneurship training among the poor for human capital development.
“The N-Power, Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme, National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, and Conditional Cash Transfer are undergoing series of strategic realignment and restructuring with the view to optimise their operations and maximise their impacts. Today, we have reached another milestone in the process of recruiting and on-boarding of the Batch C N-Power beneficiaries, beginning with 500,000 beneficiaries.”
Farouq further explained that the new batch will drive skills acquisition for beneficiaries, with the goal to ensure that they are economically active and possess the right vocational skillset to attract gainful employment when they graduate.
According to the minister, the beneficiaries will be paid N30,000 each as monthly stipend, adding that the scheme will increase national employment indices and ensure the productive engagement of millions of youths.
From tracking the impact of N-Power in the South-South region it was obvious that considerable and positive effects were registered. A study by Newman Enyioko of the University of Port found that the major activities of N-Power programmes towards poverty alleviation in Rivers State indeed generated empowerment for the youths in the state.
The study revealed that N-Power Programmes’ beneficiaries are mainly university and polytechnic graduates. It also revealed that the major factors affecting the implementation of N-Power programmes towards poverty alleviation in Rivers State include: Insufficient information, non-payment of stipend to participants as at when due, wrong bank verification number (BVN) and overbearing hands of politicians in the programme, high transportation fare paid by the participants to work, website and internet hiccups.
Going forward, the study recommended that the authorities concerned should promote rural development through N-Power programmes. Integrated rural development is also seen as the key for alleviating poverty of the rural dwellers who constitute the greater chunk of the population and that government at all levels should reactivate moribund industries and enterprises and expand the horizon of N-Power programmes in that direction.
To varying degrees of success and often similar challenges, the N-Power programmes also impacted Bayelsa, Edo, Delta, Akwa Ibom and Cross River states – all in the South-South zone.
Another very significant dimension of the N-Power Programmes in the South-South is the N-POWER – Innovation Hubs Programme. Through this programme, the federal government plans to establish eight Technology Innovation Hubs around the country with one in each geo-political zone. An early beneficiary, the South-South Hub, in partnership with the Edo State Government’s ‘Edo Innovates’ initiative, is focused on training the youths and supporting entrepreneurs with solutions across education, oil & gas, security, amongst other areas.
The Hub is strategically placed alongside Microsoft, Cisco Academy, Slot Foundation’s training class and other similar organisations that feed the ecosystem. In addition, a branch has also been set up at the Tinapa Knowledge City, Cross River, Calabar.
In the North-Central zone, the N-Power programme has recorded measurable impact too. In Kwara State for instance, N13.3 bilion has been spent on N-Power beneficiaries as at September 2020. The 15,246 N-Power beneficiaries comprised Batches A and B who volunteered in the state before they exited the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP).
Among the five N-Power components, education subcomponent is the most popular, due to a large number of youth deployed to teach in public schools. Other popular subcomponents are agriculture and health. The scheme recently disengaged both Batch A and B graduates enrolled in the N-Power scheme, opening a new portal for fresh intakes of volunteers that have seen a record of over five million people that so far applied.
The Kwara State focal person also gave a breakdown of the total expenses spent in a period of five years. She said the Batch A beneficiaries in Kwara State, who were engaged for a period of 42 months, gulped a total sum of N7.4 billion, while the Batch B beneficiaries received a total sum of N5.7 billion in 24 months.
Her words: “Non-graduates received the sum of N10,000 every month and were engaged for a period of 24 months with a total sum of over N24 million spent.” She further revealed that the Kwara State government has replicated the youth empowerment programme, codenamed K-Power, in order not to throw beneficiaries into the labour market after exiting N-Power.
From evaluation, it was noted that the inclusion of non-educated youths was important. Some stakeholders urged extension of the programme beyond two years and that more sectors should be added to make it multi-sectorial in reducing unemployment and poverty.
Meanwhile, in Makurdi, Benue State, last weekend, the federal government disbursed N20,000 each to 2,900 women to improve their living standards, an activity update by Mrs. Sadiya Farouq, during the inauguration of the grant for rural women project. This complements the core N-Power empowerment of youths.
Her words: “Our target in Benue is to disburse the grant to about 2,900 beneficiaries across all local government councils. The grant is expected to increase income and productive assets of target beneficiaries. It is our hope that the beneficiaries of this programme will make good use of the grant to generally contribute toward improving their living standards.
“This is by using the fund as a seed to boost their trade for greater income and not to see it as their own share of the so-called “national cake.” What obtains in Kwara, Nasarawa, Kogi and Benue are largely replicated in the other states that constitute the region: Niger, and Plateau.
In Nasarawa State, the federal government distributed tools and equipment to over 5000 N-power build pre-apprenticeship participants in Lafia to make them more self-reliant. This was confirmed by Alhaji Dauda Wase, the Nasarawa State Coordinator, National Directorate of Employment (NDE), while presenting Testimonials and distribution of the training tools and equipment to the beneficiaries.
The tools and equipment distributed to the beneficiaries were for masonry and tiling , electrical installation, carpentry, plumbing and pipe fittings, automobile repairs, catering, housekeeping, bakery and confectionery, among others.
Throughout the duration of the just concluded pre-apprenticeship basic training in Nasarawa, each trainee was provided with a nourishing meal per day and the sum of N10,000 stipend every month.
In Kogi State, over 12,000 youths have benefited from the N-Power scheme. It’s worth repeating here that the NSIP is not all about N-Power; it also has other key components like the Conditional Cash Transfer (Household Uplifting Programme), Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program (tradermoni, marketmoni, farmermoni) and the Home Grown School Feeding Program (HGSF).
The CCT programme directly supports those within the lowest poverty bracket by improving nutrition, increasing household consumption through cash benefit of N5,000 monthly. Kogi State is one of the 8 pilot States that started the Cash transfer program in 2016. It has two categories of cash transfer and a livelihood support targeted at poor and vulnerable households.
