Scores
of young graduates who were beneficiaries of the N. Power Scheme have protested
over alleged disqualification and non-payment of their stipends by the Federal
Government.
The
protesters who stormed the Secretariat of Nigeria Union of Journalists,
Oke-Ilewo, Abeokuta armed with placards with various inscriptions, lamented
that they have worked for the federal government, but, yet to be paid since
last year December.
The leader of the protesters Mutairu Olalekan
, said “there are series of issues facing volunteers in this state, starting
from nonpayment of stipend, unjust disqualification, login issues, missing of
selected volunteers’ names from verified list and many more.
But,
in a swift reaction, the State Focal Person for the Scheme, who is also
Commissioner for Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs ,Barr. Adeleke
Adewolu said “no state government has any involvement in the payment of the
scheme. Adewolu who spoke with newsmen while reacting to the protest by the
Nigeria power volunteers, said, once the beneficiaries have been deployed to
the state, they become Npower volunteer corp members.
He said the scheme is Federal government idea,
adding that the role of the state government is to work with the Npower
agencies to make sure people are verified in accordance with the rule of the
programme. According to him, at the end of the verification process we have
about 5,000 members that showed up, some did not turn up with the verification
process. “During the verification process, we were only allowed to observe, to
ensure that the project is transparent, the Federal government came up with the
idea of sending their agencies to conduct the verification exercise.
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