By Abdullahi M. Gulloma
Abuja
Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the federal government would open portal for the second phase of the N-Power programme for the recruitment of 300,000 job seekers on June 13, 2017.
Osinbajo said this yesterday at an event to showcase the achievements of the National Social Investment Programme held at the State House Conference Centre in Abuja as part of activities to mark the second anniversary of the present administration.
He said the National Social Investment Programme was not designed as a favour for the vulnerable ones in the society but because the beneficiaries deserve it as citizens.
He said: “The next phase of this programme we proceed on a surer footing. We will be reopening the portals for N-Power on the 13 of June; we are ramping up on the CCT, GEEP, and the Home Grown School FEEDING. Our targets are clear, soon enough we will put smiles on the faces of millions more.
“I want to say to all of you that we do not consider the programme as a favour done to you. It is not. You deserve this programme because you are citizens of this country. This country can provide and should provide for all that is in need of help and we will do our very best to provide.”
The Acting President said National Social Investment Programme “is heart and head” government’s initiative “because it is difficult to ignore the pains caused by poverty,” and that articulate and detailed planning was required to provide appropriate remedies.
“The social Investment Programme is both a heart and a head programme. Heart, because the pains of poverty cannot be ignored. The programme is also a head or logical common sense issue. A country’s economic development is a function of the number living above poverty level.
“Our levels of poverty are so alarming that clearly some fundamental interventions by government are necessary. For all those who need the help, we will do our very best to provide. I want to say that we are extremely grateful about the way that you have done this. When some people talk about N30,000 for a graduate, it almost seems as if this is ridiculous, but it is clear that anyone who hasn’t had a job for years, and that is the case for so many, needs that start in life.”
He said out of the N500 billion reserved for the programme in 2017 budget, N100 billion had now been earmarked for affordable housing scheme for low income earners in the county.
“The fund will enable us to provide inexpensive mortgages for hundreds of thousands across the country. Already the project has started in 11 states.”
Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment Programme, Mrs. Maryam Uwias, said 87 per cent of the selected N-Power graduate volunteers had started receiving payments.
She said the beneficiaries had been deployed to teach in primary and secondary schools and to serve in primary health centres as well as agricultural extension workers.
In his remarks, the Minority Leader of the Senate, and former governor of Akwa Ibom state, Mr. Godswil Akpabio, commended the federal government for the programme, stressing the need for more information dissemination about it to Nigerians.
“Poverty has no political party and of course, unemployment has no political party; hunger has no political party. So, whenever a government at the state or national level initiates a programme that is earmarked at putting food on the table of Nigerians or alleviating the poverty situation or helping us to bridge the unemployment gap; we must all applaud such a programme, and that’s why I came,” he said.
