N-Power to accommodate 500,000 more beneficiaries -Osinbajo

The N-Power programme of the Buhari-led administration will be expanded to accommodate 1 million beneficiaries in the next phase, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo says.
Mr Osinbajo was quoted as saying this in a statement by his senior special assistant on media and publicity, Office of the Vice-President, Laolu Akande, in Abuja on Tuesday.
Mr Akande quoted Mr Osinbajo as having made the disclosure when he responded to questions at a town hall meeting in Abuja.
The vice-president said that N-Power was borne out of the growing need for government direct intervention in job creation.
“The idea of N-Power is supposed to be government own programme of direct employment and training.
“At the moment, we have taken up to 500,000 and in the next phase, we are looking at another 200,000 and closely followed by another 300,000.
“In all, we will be employing up to a million; and that will be the largest post-tertiary job programme in entire Africa.
“The reason why we have done this is because of the employment problems that we have, we may not be able to engage everybody but at least, the government must give some direct provision of jobs,“ Mr Osinbajo said.
He further explained that the government could not pay more than the N30,000 currently to beneficiaries and also fix all the unemployment issues.
He said, however, said the federal government was working on creating the enabling environment to ensure that beneficiaries, as well as other unemployed Nigerians, become useful to themselves.(NAN)