The Federal Executive Council (FEC) of Nigeria has approved N5.5 billion ($15 million) to fund a new scheme that is targeted at creating employment for 60,000 Nigerians aged 18-25 years. This was announced by the Minister of Budget and Planning, Udoma Udoma while briefing State House correspondents at a meeting of the council chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari. The new scheme is called the N-Power knowledge multi-track youth empowerment programme.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC meeting, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma, said the selection criteria would be the same procedure adopted for the hitherto beneficiaries of N-power programme. The sum of N259,000 will be spent on the training of each beneficiary and another N207,000 for the provision of work tools for each of them. He noted that the scheme was conceived to train and equip young Nigerians with the ability to handle electronic equipment.
“The training intends to transform the 12,000 beneficiaries from unemployed, under-employed trainees to employed citizens and entrepreneurs. It will deliver to 12,000 beneficiaries informed trainings which will enable beneficiaries build and imbibe technical proficiency such as assembling, repairs, maintenance as well as technical skills and digital literacy across a wide range of electronic brands, products, and technology which can be grouped into three areas — mobile devices, computing devices and commonly used electronic devices — irrespective of their socio-economic backgrounds.
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“It’s a programme that is open to all unemployed youths across the six geopolitical zones. Each of the 12,000 targeted beneficiaries will be empowered to train 5,000 youths via a training platform which means they will need to translate the jobs to 60,000 additional jobs because each of the 12,000 is empowered to train five other youths via a training platform and engage them on his or her platform. The project is awarded to Messrs Softcam for a duration of nine months. Softcam will be working with officials of Social Investment Programme” he said.
The fund is for the training and provision of work tools for 12,000 young Nigerians under the N-Power scheme of the federal government’s Social Investment Programme (SIP). The unemployed or underemployed graduates aged 18-25 yrs will be trained on mobile computing and commonly used electronic devices and given relevant devices afterward.