Live Chat: 'Dear Mr. Afolabi, N-Power is Not NYSC' - 2016 Volunteer Replies Afolabi, Insists on Permanency | CNR

Following the statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation and top N-Power management staff, Mr. Afolabi Imoukhuede during a live chat with N-Power beneficiaries recently that N-Power is an enhanced and improved NYSC, a Lagos state N-Power volunteer, Bolanle Bamidele has replied him, saying it was wrong of him to have likened N-Power to NYSC.

Bamidele insisted that the attempt by Mr. Afolabi to liken N-Power to NYSC was either "calculated deceitful move aimed at cowing gullible minds into surrender or a joke taken too far".

Mr. Afolabi Imoukhuede had during live a chat with N-Power beneficiaries on Wednesday 27 June said that N-Power, one of the social investment programme of the Federal Government should be viewed as an "enhanced and extended improvement to NYSC", suggesting that save for the "enhancement and improvement", both are the same in outlook.

READ ALSO: "You Promised Youths 2Million Jobs During Campaign But Recruited Graduates For Second NYSC Called N-Power" - Nigerian Graduate Slams Pres. Buhari 

But writing in an opinion article sent to CNR Nigeria, the female N-Power beneficiary frowned at Mr. Afolabi's comparison of N-Power and NYSC, arguing that both are not the same and cannot be viewed as such.

"Having carefully watched the recent live chat by our very respected and hardworking Mr. Afolabi Imoukhuede, I found some fallacious claims and assertions made by Mr. Afolabi which I think if allowed to go uncorrected, will make some undiscerning minds to swallow those false claims hook and sink.

"I therefore wishes to use your very credible platform to reply Mr. Afolabi and correct those evidently wrong impression he made about N-Power and NYSC during the widely watched live chat. The attempt to liken N-Power to NYSC is dead on arrival. The claim by Mr. Afolabi, with all due, I make bold to say is wrong, fallacious and lack supporting evidence. At another look, it is an insult to tell hundreds of thousands of N-Power beneficiaries who are working tirelessly in their communities and PPAs that they are only taking another round of NYSC but this time, "enhanced and improved".

READ ALSO: Confusion! N-Power Volunteer Under Attack For Exposing Another Beneficiary Who Collects Stipend For Doing Nothing 

"That single claim by Mr. Afolabi spoiled the whole show. He is a man many of us respect so much for his diligence and faithfulness on duty. But whether that claim he made in the live chat is a planned action or unintended discharge, I here register my disapproval of that claim. It is either a calculated deceitful move aimed at cowing gullible minds into surrender or a joke taken too far.

"What is exactly is the basis of Mr. Afolabi's claim. Or is he trying to force it down our throat? I don't know any Nigeria graduate who would want to repeat NYSC if offered the opportunity. What exactly is good about our NYSC experience (apart from meeting new friends and mingling with people of another culture) that would make one to repeat it? On a serious note, I was shock when he made the assertion. In a general sense, it is untrue and cannot hold water in the face of simplest logic.

"I will accept it if Mr. Afolabi had told us in plain language that FG is not giving us permanency than insulting my intelligence by making such baseless comparison. Besides, I don't see anything wrong in our demand for permanency. We are adding previously unavailable value in our schools and health centres such that should compel any people-oriented government to immediately commence the process of absorption into mainstream civil service", Bamidele wrote.

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She urged her co-volunteers to continue in selfless effort to better their communities by providing quality services in their respective PPAs, adding that only under such situation should they be bold enough to continue their demand for permanency.