No fewer than 3,000 youths have been successfully trained in skill acquisition by the federal government.
The minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, stated this on Wednesday in Abuja while charging the graduands to put to good use the knowledge acquired during the period of the training at the end of the N-Knowledge training wing of the N-Power Programme for Batch C1, held across the 6 geopolitical zones of the country.
Declaring all training camps closed, Farouq reiterated President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment to eradicate poverty in the country by lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.
“You will confirm by now that the N-Knowledge programme is focused on equipping young Nigerians with relevant skills and certification to become competent workers, innovators and entrepreneurs prepared for both the domestic and global digital job market. N-Knowledge programme targets to upskill 20,000 young Nigerians on the global radar as exporters of world-class services and content in the creative and information technology sectors. The shortfall of about 7,000 will be mopped up as soon as possible to meet up with the target of 20,000 as earmarked for this tranche.
“This training component is targeted at developing competencies of the youth in software development, Hardware training and creative industry which is catalytic as well as the groundwork to make Nigeria compete in the outsourcing market for software development. It will develop the skills and capacities along the skills set in the value chain of website development, mobile apps maintenance and start the talent development effort for the growth of information technology industry in Nigeria.”
“the Federal Government provided accommodation for all the participants across the 24 training camps, paid a monthly feeding allowance of N27,000 for three months and N30,000 transport allowances which were divided into N15,000 when reporting to camps and another N15,000 at the end of the camp.”
She assured the beneficiaries that the monthly stipends of N10,000 for the period of nine months which has commenced will continue to the end of your apprenticeship period.
Responding to questions from journalists,the National Coordinator National Social Investment program (NSIP), Dr. Umar Bindr said
It’s a very ambitious programme, NSIP has been acknowledged as the most ambitious poverty eradication programme in the whole of Africa.”
“If you have one million Graduates attached every month for the one year, they are paid a stipend of N30,000 so every month, there’s a bill of N30 billion, just to pay the stipend and you can do the estimate in one year, you are talking about between N300 and N360 billion only paying for the stipend.
“The non-Graduates have packages as you can see, computers, welding facilities, soldering facilities and so on. They take their own starter packs after being trained, they can now go and do their own business.
“So it is as I said, it is a very ambitious programme and the government is investing between N300 to N400 billion every year to sustain the programme
