BEVERLY HILLS, June 22, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government disclosed on Wednesday that its youth employment scheme, N-Power, attained a major milestone by attracting 1.1 million applications from graduates in just a week after the portal was opened.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job creation, Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede, gave this hint in Asaba during an interaction with beneficiaries of the N-Power scheme in Delta State, who he told that for every chance they had to be selected, there were hundreds of others waiting to grab the opportunity.
Harping on the rules of the scheme to volunteers, he warned that “those who perpetually absented from work or were irregular in attendance would be demobilised and replaced with applicants resident in the state.”
The presidential aide stated that no fewer than 751,000 applicants qualified for engagement last year, but pointed out that only 300,000 graduates were recruited nationwide.
He said that the non-advertisement of the non-graduate recruitment programme in 2017 was to enable those who applied for it last year to be considered.
“It is for fairness that we did not advertise for applications for non-graduates so that those whose applications were collected could be screened and placed. The non-graduate scheme will be mobilized in batches from July,’’ he said.
Imoukhuede noted that the job scheme had five key sector targets, including volunteerism and entrepreneurship development, stressing that the scheme was a fulfillment of the promise by the Muhammadu Buhari administration to tackle youth unemployment in the country.
He said that N-power offered youths the opportunity to do full-time paid volunteer job, develop entrepreneurial skills and have two-year job experience, to boost their curriculum vitae for future international or local jobs.
“When you do not show seriousness through diligence, no one will take you seriously, ’’ he said, and urged the volunteers to also use the opportunity to develop investment plans or pattern for themselves.
The SSA lauded three N-power volunteers who established a mini laboratory at the Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC) at Otokutu, Ughelli South Local Government Area by pulling their funds together.
He advised others to learn to form synergies and cooperation among themselves, to benefit from the government programmes for cooperatives.
“Learn the art of cooperatives and entrepreneurship; if you do not have discipline and the right attitude to work, you cannot be an entrepreneur.
“N-Power gives you an opportunity in a control room to take a giant leap into greater position and prosperity.This is a ray of hope that Mr President has offered you and you must not allow it to slip by,’’ he emphasised.
On the N-Tax component added to the new recruitment, Imoukhuede said it was being done as a leverage partnership with the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federal Inland Revenue Service to grow the country’s tax base.
He added that the N-Tax volunteers would be posted to canvass the need for prompt and due tax payments and for the people to embrace the civic duty.
“It is an advocacy programme which requires agile youths in a purely professional environment which they can also use to better their financial know-how,” he said.
The SSA disclosed that only 7,500 N-Tax recruits are needed immediately but that 100,000 applications have filed applications for it in seven days.
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