The federal government on Monday flagged off the onboarding of 510 N-Power beneficiaries in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq who flagged off the event in Abuja, congratulated the successful beneficiaries and charged them to make optimum use of the rare opportunity given to them.
While, explaining that N-Power volunteer (graduates) were entitled to a monthly stipend of N30,000 for a period of one year, she said non-graduate beneficiaries were entitled to N10,000.000 monthly stipends for a period of 9 months under the Batch C.
Umar Farouq noted that changes have been made in the selection process of N-Power beneficiaries while pledging the ministry’s commitment to ensuring that the strategic objectives of all the National Social Investment Programmes are achieved.
“Some innovations have been introduced into the N-Power selection and payment processes such as the creation of the National Social Investment Management Systems (NASIMS), partnership with key MDAs including the NYSC, the UBEC, the NPHCDA, the NOA to mention but a few, with which the Ministry is leveraging to effectively implement its interventions.
“To ensure that the challenges of communication are addressed, regarding limitation of information flow and internet access across the country, the Ministry has provided access to information via a USSD code. The USSD short code *45665# will provide the required connectivity and technical support for the provision of information services to our beneficiaries”.
The minister thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for his administration’s unwavering efforts in eradicating poverty in the country and sustaining the National Social Investment Programnes. She also appreciated the National Assembly members for appropriating funds to execute the N-power programme and for their oversight in ensuring that the programmes were implemented as approved.
Minister Umar Farouq also presented engagement letters to some of the successful beneficiaries.
Batch C is divided into 2 streams. Stream C1 comprises 510,000 beneficiaries while stream C2 has 490,000 beneficiaries.
Under the Batch C1, a total of 450,000 have been selected to benefit under the graduate component and 60,000 non-graduate beneficiaries.
The N-Power programme which specializes in Agriculture, Health, Teaching, ICT, Entrepreneurship and Building, deploys an online application and selection strategy to ensure fairness, transparency and credibility in the recruitment process.
