Published 30th Jan, 2022

By Emmanuel Uti

Batch C participants of the N-Power programme organised by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development have accused the federal government of owing them up to four months’ salary.

Many voiced dissatisfaction with the development on social media, while others hoped the government would pay them.

FIJ learned that the N-Power batch C programme started in September 2021. However, since then, the government has paid only a minority of participants for about two months.

Gozie Okaka, an N-Power teacher in Oyo State, told FIJ that the government is punishing him rather than empowering him.

“The federal government has been playing with the little N30,000 they agreed to pay graduates. They are punishing us. We have been working since September 2021. Since then, they have paid only a few of us for up to three months (September, October, and November), while others were for just one or two months,” Okaka told FIJ.

He said many N-Power beneficiaries experienced challenges on their portal after they received their first salaries, which he suspected was a strategy employed by the ministry to avoid paying them.

“The same account they paid into in September is now what they are saying is invalid. Most people see an accounting failure on their dashboard. Other times, they would see ‘transaction does not exist’. Going by this narrative, it feels like they do not want to pay,” he said.

“The National Social Investment Management System (NASIMS) support service makes it worse. When you call, they will never pick it and even if you send 1,000 emails, they will not reply.”

He also said it scared him that the government might have diverted their salaries to something else, given that the government had a budget for N-Power in 2022.

Omowunmi Adetayo, an N-Power beneficiary in Ogun State, has a similar experience with Okaka. She told FIJ that the ministry had only paid her once since September.

“Since the start of the empowerment, they have been slow at paying. I collected my September payment very late, and that’s the only one that I have collected. They are supposed to pay every month, but there is always one problem or the other,” she said.

Adetayo further explained that the ministry did not pay her September salary when it was due but in December. She also said many people did not get their first payment until three months later.

She explained that after the government paid many of them their first salaries, they had challenges on the dashboard, which she suspected was the ministry’s doing to avoid paying them.

“They may say the account failed because no action was taken or an invalid account number, but they delay the payment always,” she said.

When FIJ called the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs via their official line, no call representative picked up the call. At press time, they had not responded to a text message sent to them.

N-Power is a scheme set up by President Muhammadu Buhari on June 8, 2016, to address youth unemployment and help increase social development.

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