Beneficiaries of the N-Power initiative who have concluded the two-year job programme will now be able to access permanent job opportunities or business prospects.
This is in line with the N-power exit strategy now activated by President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq, confirmed the activation of the Government’s exit strategy for Batches A and B of the N-Power scheme at the 4th annual review of the Home Grown School Feeding Programme NHGSFP.
She said, “Plans have been concluded for the transition of the N-power Batch A and B through the creation of the NEXIT portal, which would allow those who choose to sign up to access other government empowerment opportunities.”
The Minister stated that a beneficiary management system for the NSIPs is expected to be deployed in 2021 which would have the capacity to manage payments, address grievances and improve the dissemination of information.
Under the plan, 200,000 beneficiaries will be engaged as financial services operators under a Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility, SANEF scheme operated by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Another 30,000 have already been engaged as geospatial experts and enumerators in the Economic Sustainability Plan’s Mass Agric programme while several others will have the option of benefiting from the GEEP micro-enterprise loans.
Some beneficiaries of the scheme confirmed that a platform known as N-exit portal had indeed been opened to collate and process beneficiaries’ information in line with the government’s exit strategy.
Mr Orioye Gbayisemore, a beneficiary from Ondo State, confirmed that many of his colleagues in his community had already uploaded their data on the N-exit portal while Mrs Vivian Nkiruka Nellys, another beneficiary in the FCT, said she uploaded her data at the end of December 2020 in preparation for the new scheme for the former N-Power beneficiaries.
According to N-Power exit strategy document, at least 200,000 former N-Power beneficiaries will be onboard on a scheme known as the Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility (SANEF) .
While at least 30, 000 others would be deployed for the Mass Agric programme, a component of the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), and another number will be given opportunities to improve or start new businesses under a micro-enterprise initiative.
The SANEF scheme is a project powered by the Central Bank of Nigeria, Deposit Money Banks, Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems, Chattered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, Licensed Mobile Money Operators, and Shared Agents with the primary objective of accelerating financial inclusion in Nigeria.
According to the plan, the project will among other things create a platform for Nigerian owned financial services companies to grow whilst empowering and creating jobs for Nigerians.
SANEF in partnership with NSIP will onboard 200,000 N-Power graduates as SANEF agents under the approved SANEF licensed Super Agents, while achieving N-Power’s objective to improve the livelihood of young unemployed Nigerians.
Under the scheme, the beneficiaries will be trained in different areas including customer service, transaction settlement, liquidity management, anti-money laundering, among others, while government would facilitate the initial funding for the scheme for each beneficiary.
NP/Confidence Okwuchi
