FG announces training for exited N-Power volunteers in October

The Federal government has disclosed its plan to commence training for the exited batches A and B of the N-Power scheme in October.

Sadiya Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, made this disclosure while speaking on Wednesday at the Chatham House on social development and humanitarian challenges facing Nigeria, and the government’s responses to the ongoing humanitarian and food crises in the country.

The minister also revealed that out of 500,000 exited volunteers, 390,000 of them have been successfully accommodated in the NEXIT.

NEXIT is an exit package for all the beneficiaries of the N Power in partnership with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to enable them to benefit from the CBN empowerment options.

Speaking on the plan of the Federal Government for the exited N Power volunteers, she said: “The exited volunteers have been put on a programme with the Central Bank of Nigeria in partnership with the ministry to prepare an exit package for them and we have gone very far in this regard.

“People have registered onto different skills that they want to be supported and we are at the point of training these exited NPower beneficiaries on to the skills that they have choosen for themselves.

“By next month, we should start the process of training them on their preferred skills.

“We are working with the CBN to support them with soft loans and out of the 500,000 exited N Power beneficiaries, about 390,000 of them have successfully been accommodated into the NEXIT programme while about 109,000 are already on their way to entrepreneurship on their own even before we started the NEXIT.”

She also said the beneficiaries would be given a starter pack at the end of the training.

“At the end of this training, we are going to provide them with starter packs and we are also going to establish their business module for them.”

Commenting on the impact of the food crisis and how the ministry intervened during the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the minister said: “During the COVID outbreak, we had four most affected states; precisely Ogun, Lagos, Kano and FCT.

“For the grains that we were supposed to distribute, we distributed to about 28 states out of the 37 states including FCT.

“For the other food items, especially rice which is a staple food for every part of the country, every state of the federation was given the intervention. So, it was for all the states of the federation

“So, we handed over 70,000 metric tonnes of grains to all states across the federation, reaching approximately 9 million households”.