The federal government has said it has no plans to absorb the yet to be disengaged Batch A N-Power volunteers into the federal civil service.

In a statement signed on Saturday by the humanitarian ministry’s Deputy Director, Information, Rhoda Iliya, the government described any such report as “fake”.

The disclaimer followed reports across social media that President Muhammadu Buhari will on June 12 announce the engagement of the outgoing N-Power Batch A volunteers into the Nigerian civil service as part of their exit package.

In its statement, the humanitarian ministry said information regarding the N-Power scheme or any of its National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP) would be issued through the appropriate channels.

“The attention of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, has been drawn to the fake news trending on social media that President Muhammadu Buhari will on June 12 broadcast to the nation the absorption of N-Power Batch A Volunteers into the Federal Civil Service.

“The Ministry is hereby calling on the public to disregard the message and consider it as fake news.

“Any information on N-Power or the National Social Investment Programme will be issued through the appropriate Federal Government channels,” the ministry said.

The N-Power programme kicked off in 2016 with over 200,000 young Nigerians selected in the first phase. The beneficiaries were to have dropped out of the scheme after two years of internship.

In a phone interview with PREMIUM TIMES last year, the President’s Special Adviser on Social Investment, Maryam Uwais, said her office had made efforts to reach out to state governors on the possibility of engaging the volunteers into the civil service.

She said, ”On the exit plan for the N Power beneficiaries, we have written the governors to see if they could employ some of them. We have got a lot of discussions with a lot of government agencies on the prospect. We even had discussions with IBM and they were planning to train them online.”

The NSIPs were last year moved from Mrs Uwais’ office to the newly created humanitarian ministry.

The new minister later blamed the National Social Investment Office (NSIO), under Mrs Uwais, for having no viable plan for the exit of the beneficiaries.

The N-Power Programme was inaugurated by President Buhari in 2016 to reduce poverty, unemployment and social insecurity among Nigerians.

It involves the deployment of thousands of unemployed graduates to schools and other institutions to work there while the government pays them a stipend of N30,000 monthly.
©Premium times