The inaugural set of 200,000 unemployed graduates already selected in the first batch of the N-power volunteer job and training scheme of the Buhari Social Investment Programmes should start work in the next two weeks.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, made this disclosure while speaking at the Apostolic Coalition Summit in Lagos.
According to him as a stop gap measure, the Buhari administration is engaged in direct creation of jobs, including the plan to create 500, 000 jobs for unemployed graduates.
He explained that the programme should have commenced “as at October 31, 2016, but is delayed on account of the fact that we are trying to get as many of the equipments that we require,” referring to the tablets that would be given to all the 500,000 N-power undergraduate participants.
The Vice President also explained that efforts are being made “to ensure that all across the country, we are able to provide those opportunities as we promised.”
Already 200,000 unemployed Nigerians have been selected, including 150,000 who would teach and serve in their communities. The balance is made up of 30,000 who would serve as Agric Extension Workers and 20,000 who would serve as public health workers.
Each of the unemployed graduates would get a N30,000 monthly stipend, and also get an electronic tablet that would be packaged with several applications that would train and empower the participants.
Vice President reiterated that the N-Power scheme was launched as a volunteer programme “to create temporary opportunities for young graduates, to at least be doing something and many of them would be volunteer teachers, health officials and extension workers, who will earn a stipend.”
He added that the participants will also have a device “and that device has a lot of training brochures, different forms of training brochures and it’s also a device that enables them to be able to, on a continuous basis, learn different things, some code-writing, some entrepreneurial skills. There are lot of varieties of material that can be learned on the device. The device is also a means of communicating with them wherever they may be in the country.”
He noted that “at the moment close to a million graduates have registered on the volunteered scheme and we should be doing the first 200,000 in the next 14 days or so, we should be able to get started with the first 200,000 across the country.”
While the federal government would pay the 200,000 directly, state governments would play an active role in their deployment to the needed areas. The first batch of 200,000 selected volunteers are also being screened using the BVN so as to properly set-up the payment of their monthly stipends.
