There are no online applications required for those set of Nigerians for
\nwhom the monthly N5,000 Conditional Cash Transfer of the Buhari Social
\nInvestment programmes are designed for.<\/p>\n
This clarification was made today by Mr. Laolu Akande, the Senior Special
\nAssistant on Media in the Office of the Vice President in a chat with the
\npress.<\/p>\n
He was responding to questions arising from what he described as some
\nmisleading reports in the media regarding the implementation of the N500B
\nSocial Investment Programmes of the Buhari administration.<\/p>\n
The said media reports are based on a recent debate and resolution on a
\nmotion in the Senate, titled \u201cThe Need to Avoid the Mismanagement of the
\nN500B Social Intervention Funds.”<\/p>\n
According to Akande, \u201cwhile we understand the need for an ongoing public
\ndiscussion of this unprecedented budgetary allocation in favor of the
\nNigerian people especially the poorest and the most vulnerable, it is not
\ncorrect to claim any form of mismanagement\u00a0 or marginalization
\nwhatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that \u201c there has not been any disbursement from the allocated
\nfund not to talk of any kind of mismanagement at all. While it is true
\nthat funds are being released for the social investment programmes, it is
\nrather preposterous for now to say there is no evidence where the funds
\nhave gone to. As an administration noted for its transparency, we intend
\nto fully keep Nigerians posted of all financial expenditure in line with
\nextant laws of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Presidential Spokesperson explained that \u201cof the series of social
\ninvestment programmes we have outlined, only the job creation
\nscheme-N-Power requires an online registration from unemployed graduates
\nand non-graduate youths.\u201d<\/p>\n
Continuing, he noted that the Conditional Cash Transfer, CCT, which would
\npay N5000 monthly to the most vulnerable and the poorest Nigerians-a total
\nof one million in the first year-\u201cno online registration of any kind is
\nrequired,\u201d Akande asserted.<\/p>\n
Justifying the requirement for online registration for the hiring of
\n500,000 unemployed graduates, Akande said \u201cit is important to explain,
\nagain, for the benefit of clarity, that the requirement for online
\napplication for the N-Power job scheme makes absolute sense considering
\nthat all together the Federal Government is planning to hire half a
\nmillion unemployed Nigerian graduates.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to him, \u201cwe are all witnesses to the calamity that occurred in
\nthe past when a manual effort was made to hire large number of Nigerian
\nyouths. It led to needless deaths and outright chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n
Continuing the Spokesperson stated that \u201casking university graduates, for
\ninstance, to apply online is not such a cumbersome or unattainable
\nrequirement considering that JAMB, NECO, WAEC applications have all been
\ndone online for a while now in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said \u201cwhat online applications do is to afford us as a government an
\nefficient and effective means to process the applications and select the
\ngraduates and non-graduate youths for the N-Power job and training
\nprogrammes.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the claim that Borno State is not online and therefore the N-Power
\nprocess discriminates against people in the state for whom the programmes
\nare designed, Akande said such a claim \u201csimply flies in the face of the
\nfact. Almost 15,000 Nigerians from Borno State applied in the first
\napplication series of N-Power schemes online.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to him \u201cit is also not tenable to argue that people in Maiduguri
\nfor instance which today plays hosts to tonnes of international NGOs
\ncannot apply online or are denied internet access.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that in states like Enugu there were over 20,000 applications
\nonline for N-Power, disclosing that states with the lowest numbers like
\nZamfara and Bayelsa had over 6,000 and 7,000 applications respectively.<\/p>\n
Continuing he said \u201cin any case we are aware that in several parts of the
\ncountry, there are reported instances where local leaders of goodwill
\nensured that the people-unemployed graduates and youths- who did not
\nreadily have access to the internet were adequately taken care of in
\ndifferent ways including creating online registration points and outlets.\u201d<\/p>\n
He disclosed that the selection process for the first batch of 200,000
\nNigerians to be engaged in the N-Power process has now been completed, and
\nthat their official engagement is now awaiting the completion of BVN
\nverification so that they would be paid directly.<\/p>\n
Asked how the selection was done, Akande said \u201cPresidency officials
\ncollaborated actively with the Ministries of Agriculture & Natural
\nResources, Health and other government agencies all through the process.
\nThere were no foreign consultants involved, nor is one needed.\u201d He further
\nexplained that to make up the selection of the first 200,000, there were
\nthree criteria thus: 40% selected based on the number of applications per
\nstate, a special mark-up for the 6 states of the Northeast and a
\ndiscretionary addition for states with low numbers of applicants.<\/p>\n
Asked to comment on the comparison of the Buhari Social Investment\u00a0 with
\nthe failed SURE-P, Akande argued that the Buhari Presidency has made \u201cvery
\ndiligent and transparent efforts to ensure that the Social Investment
\nProgrammes do not repeat the errors of the past, and the attempt therefore
\nto hurriedly compare the programmes with failed efforts of the past, like
\nSURE-P, even at this early stage is simply baseless.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to him, the Buhari Presidency conceived the Social Investments
\nProgrammes as a means to effectively and efficiently touch the lives of
\nNigerians, especially the unemployed and the poorest, and \u201cwe have
\ndesigned a full-proof process that will ensure that the goods are
\ndelivered. There would not be any middle-men and the payments to be made
\nto the N-Power candidates, the monthly N5,000 to the poorest and most
\nvulnerable among others would be paid directly to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stated that \u201cif and when clarifications are required on the programmes,
\nwe would be very much willing to supply them in order to avoid such
\nmisleading and unprofitable confusion of issues that has taken place in
\nthe media on this matter recently.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are no online applications required for those set of Nigerians for whom the monthly N5,000 Conditional Cash Transfer of the Buhari Social Investment programmes are designed for. This clarification…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n