N-Power: Fortifying strucutures of validation on intervention schemes to address alarming youth unemployment
As the scourge of harsh economic conditions continue to leave sour narratives behind, the demands to reposition the deficient straws to get the same bouncing back to life has become of necessity. By the worsening strings, unemployment, particularly among the teeming youth, has been a breeding ground for wings of social delinquencies with the scourge of heightening criminal tendencies. The cyclical effects of the deficits have, in a chain, constituted deforming rods against the entire fabrics of the society – say economic, social, political, cultural among others.
The call for youth empowerment has been an ongoing demand with pressing emphasis on the Government. The argument has been premised on the ground that a teeming population largely unemployed would only portend threats, than a perceived opportunity as supposed. Hence, linking rising youth unemployment profile to high criminal tendencies has become close recently. While calls for concrete schemes with concerted measures to make provisions for job empowerment programmes have been lingering for long, the responses to same have been tardy. It is further noteworthy that not only the slow response to the demands is an issue of concern, but also the perceived incoherence, inconsistencies and the poor management system of the handful programmes made available, amidst deep deficits.
One noised scheme of the present President Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government among its social intervention programmes is the N-power. Billed an answer to the alarming youth unemployment rate, N-Power set up since 8th, June 2016, to address the issues of youth unemployment and help increase social development, has not achieved much concrete results as the rate of unemployment between then and present has only toughened. The scheme was created as a component of National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) to provide a structure for large-scale and relevant work skills acquisition and development; and to ensure that each participant will learn and practice most of what is necessary to find or create work. Applicants were selected and posted to several places of primary assignment (PPA), while they were initially paid a monthly stipends of N30,000. The categories of the scheme commonly known are N-Teach, N-Health, N-Agro, N-Build, N-Creative and N-Tech. N-Teach and N-Health were made available to only graduates who must have completed the mandatory one year NYSC programme, while N-Agro, N-Build, N-Creative and N-Tech is available to graduates and non-graduates. On timeline schedule, it was initially a paid programme of a two-year duration, aimed at engaging beneficiaries in their states of residence. On 13th, July 2019, the Federal Government had disclosed that it had spent a total of N279billion since payment of beneficiaries commenced from December 2016 to June 2019. In 2021, the Federal Government had introduced another N-Power category known as N-knowledge also targeted at Nigerian Youths. The aim is to help Youths learn computer hardware skills that are profitable and employable.
Recall that 12th June, 2016, online enrolment for N-Power Batch A beneficiaries commenced on the online registration portal. The portal for registration was supposed to close on 25 July 2016, but was extended till 31st August, 2016, allowing a total of 350,000 Nigerians to apply. On 21st, November 2016, 200,000 Nigerian youths out of the 350,000 that applied were selected following an online assessment test. 150,000 beneficiaries were selected under N-Teach category, 30,000 under N-Agro and 20,000 under N-Health. On 1st December, 2016, the Batch A beneficiaries were directed to commence work in their various PPAs.
However, issues arose when on 19th June, 2020, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq announced that the Batch A beneficiaries will be disengaged from the scheme on 30th June, 2020. As of then, they had overstretched their 24 months timeline on the programme, and had spent 43 months.
On 13th June, 2017, online enrolment for N-Power Batch B beneficiaries commenced which within five days, recorded more than 750,000 applications received on the online registration portal. The application portal closed on 27th, July 2017, and received a total of 2,543,079 applications, 2,258,266 persons scaled through the BVN validation stage and were invited to proceed to an online assessment test. From 1st July, 2017 to 31st August, 2017, the online assessment test was conducted to select qualified applicants in four categories, N-Tax, N-Health, N-Agro and N-Teach. A total of 1,746,454 persons wrote the online test and 300,000 were selected. They were physically verified from 4th of December 2017 to 14th, December 2017 in the 774 local government areas across the Country. 1st of August, 2018, the Batch B beneficiaries were to start work in their various PPA. 19th June 2020, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq announced that the Batch B beneficiaries will be disengaged from the scheme on 31st, July 2020.
On the 26th, June 2020, online enrolment for N-Power Batch C beneficiaries commenced and within 48 hours, more than one million applications were received on the online registration portal. One week after the online registration portal opened, three million applications were received. The Batch C has a new twist, slated only to run for 12 months with two streams recruiting 500,000 per annum. The first stream reported to their PPAs on September 4th, 2020.
Statistical analysis of the profile of applicants as given above, which recorded three million applications within a week of the Batch C online registration, reflect nothing but the height of increasing youth unemployment at an alarming rate. Hence, calling for the need to be largely concerned about the importance of strictly ensuring that the handful empowerment schemes which are largely insufficient on their own, are managed with the highest order of reckoning parameters.
The lack of clear-cut direction as an operating orientation to guide the programme in shape through coordinated pattterns for concrete outcome, has made the outcomes that would have been accruable from such programmes less impacting. Recently, controversy surrounding the running and continuity of the programme has been a noised subject.
However, it was disclosed last week that the Federal Government in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has concluded plans to give financial empowerment to 75,600 batches A and B beneficiaries of N-Power programme. The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Farouq, who said this at the inauguration of the NEXIT-CBN Agri-Business, Small and Medium Enterprises Scheme (AGSMEIS) last Monday, 14th, January, 2022 in Abuja, had said AGSMEIS is an initiative of the Bankers’ Committee, to support and complement the Federal Governments’ efforts at promoting Agri-businesses/Small and Medium Enterprises as a vehicle for sustainable economic development and employment generation.
According to a News Agency of Nigeria’s report, the event is designed to train beneficiaries, as part of strategy by the Federal Government to ensure that they actualise the objectives of N-Power initiative. According to the report, the 75,600 beneficiaries are the first batch of the N-Power, out of 467,183 who applied for the training. Farouq, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr Bashir Alkali, said N-Power programme was a critical part of the National Social Investment Programmes domiciled in the Ministry. According to her, the initiative was designed to achieve the national objectives of poverty reduction and job creation in the country. “The N-Power programme is key to helping young Nigerians acquire and develop life-long skills that ensure they become solution providers and entrepreneurs in their communities. Recently, more segments have been embedded into the N-Power programme such as the N-Skills, which is for youth with no formal education who will be trained in different vocational skills and trades. The Mobile Money Agents, which are for financial inclusion of this youth segment is another great feat in the programme,” she was quoted.
It is noteworthy that the question of the significance of such programmes as the N-Power giving expression to social interventions is not contestable. However, it becomes worrisome when the subject of the lacunas in the dispensation and administration of the schemes are too lagging to make the accruable impacts from such arrangements significant to the desired outcome. Hence, it has become of necessity while the government seek to further strengthen the face of the scheme, to inject into the working system, structures that give close relevance to piloting the programme within coordinated system of operations where the navigating lines are codified within responsive patterns which would make the reckoning successes from such programmes concrete.
Hence, as the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, under which the supervision of the programme lies looks forward to the disbursement of financial empowerment to the 75,600 slated for same, it is important that the monitoring parameters of interests be so virile in validity test to guide against cheats on the system. Reports abound of how substantial percentage of beneficiaries of empowerment funds divert and more insensitive, lavish same on unproductive ventures. Hence, it is of utmost importance for the Ministry, the relevant agencies, and the CBN as the coordinating financial body, to fortify the system of assessment with requirements of traceable conditions that make getting such fund devoid of ill motives, incoherent and inconsistent with the objectives of the disbursement.
Working out structures of checks with the strength of validation for accountability and monitoring, to ensure ill-determined beneficiaries to do cheat on the system is important. This has become sacrosanct to check against the programme failing woefully without concrete results as others have. The lacunas of poor structures of validation processes have only made several good intentioned programmes fallen short of expectations by the exploit of those who take ill advantage of the schemes against the set objectives. It behooves all relevant bodies to this time correct the deformities.
