EDITORIAL: Deployment of 2017 N-Power Beneficiaries and the Politics of 2019

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo during a visit to the N-Power situation room in Abuja in 2017.

In July 2017, Npower, one of the Social Investment Programmes of the President Mohammadu Buhari-led administration formally open its registration portal for interested applicants to apply in the N-Power 2017/2018 recruitment exercise.

Millions of unemployed Nigeria graduates saw this as an opportunity to quit roaming the streets and settle for something; no matter how little. By November 2017, two months after the applicants completed their online screening test, statistics officially released by N-Power show that 2,534,079 applied in the 2017 N-Power graduate programme. 2,258,266 applicants scaled through the BVN validation stage, out of which only 1,746,454 successfully took part in the online assessment exercise. In the end, only 300,000 persons will be recruited including those to be taken from non-graduate categories.

READ ALSO: 2017 Recruitment: How N-Power Favoured SSCE Holders, Serving Corps Members, Undergraduates, Others Against Genuinely Qualified Jobless Graduates

By the time the Scheme finally published names of successful applicants on its portal, it announced that the list was only a pre-selection. What that mean is that pre-selection does not equal final selection. In December 2017, a date was announced for physical verification of pre-selected applicants.

It took the Scheme till April 2018 to release final list of verified applicants from the pre-selection list. It is noteworthy however, that each stage in the selection process leaves the applicants in serious apprehension and fear of the eventual outcome. Those who finally made the final list considered themselves super lucky. But yet again, two months on, time has dried away their excitement and their enthusiasm has faded away.

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July 2018 is here. Exactly one year after they applied for the job. These youths have waited so long and is still not sure of what fate hold for them. This long period of waiting is not a pleasant experience. For these beneficiaries, it has been disheartening and traumatic. Many have lost hope in the scheme: others have given up.

Repeated promises by agents of the government about how the beneficiaries would be deployed "soon" no longer move the waiting beneficiaries as they have heard it several times with no matching action. Even a recent Facebook live chat by a senior Npower official, Mr. Afolabi Imoukhuede could not provide clearcut answer to the question in the lips of every 2017 selected beneficiary.

It is our considered opinion that this needless and careless delay can no longer be dismissed on some sweet-sounding political rhetoric of budgetary funding or technical issues. We recall that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had on different occasions within the last four months hinted that the beneficiaries will be deployed soon. That soon, as Nigerians have now seen it, is yet to come. This has further added credence to the speculation from some quarters that the delay is not unconnected with the 2019 elections and electioneering campaign.

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Whatever the case, we hold that it is heartbreaking to see skilled young and unemployed Nigerians cry and beg their government over a contract job that pay very little with no job security or hope of permanency. If the figure that applied for this "instead-of-nothing" job does not send a strong message to the Federal Government about the rate of unemployment in the country, nothing else will.

We urge President Mohammadu Buhari to show leadership by ordering immediate deployment of these long-waiting beneficiaries and payment of their monthly stipends in the same manner. If actually the delay has a political under tune, as many have speculated, it will certainly have a repercussion effect on those who intend to use it to score any cheap political point. Enough is enough!