Lagos’ unemployed candidates wait hopelessly, 3 months after commencement of FG’s N-Power
Three months after their counterparts in other states have resumed work and begun to receive salaries, N-Power candidates in Lagos remain stranded.
The scheme, put in place by the Federal Government as part of its promise to create job employments for Nigerian youths, kicked off in December.
Selected candidates are to be paid N30,000 monthly for the two-year duration of the scheme.
Newsroom gathered that the Federal Government had already disbursed the required funds to each states, and the states are only responsible for posting candidates to their various job designations.
Out of a total of 200,000 candidates selected across all states in the country, Lagos state is responsible for 11,000 candidates – the largest of all states.
While some states had their verification processes ahead of the December 1 resumption date for candidates, Lagos didn’t hold its own till mid-January.
“We were supposed to do our verification before December 1 like other states, but it didn’t happen till mid-January,” a candidate, name withheld, told Newsroom Nigeria.
After the candidates eventually got verified, they have been made to wait endlessly for their letters of appointments.
While their employment status remains shrouded in uncertainty, their counterparts in states like Ondo and Oyo have already received salaries for December and January.
“A friend of mine in Oyo confirmed to me that he had received salaries for December and January,” the candidate, who quit his part-time job in December in anticipation of his employment, told us.
“At the moment, we are not even sure whether we will receive the January and February salary, let alone December.”
According to the candidate, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) has cited the large number of candidates as the reason for the delay in commencement of the programme in Lagos.
The candidates, tired of the endless wait, decided to embark on a protest last week Wednesday, but officials appealed to them to shelve the protest with a promise that their case would be resolved before Monday (February 27).
“We eventually went ahead with the protest at Alausa yesterday (February 28) as nothing was done,” the candidate said.
“They said they forwarded our verification list to Abuja on Tuesday, and we should be hopeful for a feedback latest next-week Friday.”
Candidates with discrepancies in their profiles – names, age, school and other details – may eventually be axed from the scheme, we further gathered.
“They might eventually cut down the number of candidates through the new verification,” the candidate added.
The wait by Lagos state’s N-Power candidates for their rights to FG’s “goodwill” continues, as they cast enviable glances over their shoulders at their counterparts.
