By Joe Adedeji, Ilorin
The Presidency may have had reasons by now to be disappointed in the beneficiaries of its N-Power poverty alleviation programme.
Droping the hint in Ilorin, the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Job Creation, Mr. Mohammed Braimah said the beneficiaries of the programme had been grossly truant making the initiative almost ineffective.
Brimah made the this known at a Muslim event organized by ‘The Companion’; an Islamic Association in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.
The programme focused on ways to create employment for the teeming Nigerian youth with the theme; ‘Unemployment and National Insecurity, The Nexus and Panacea’.
The sensitisation programme featured Dr. Bashir Kurfi as the guest lecturer.
The Special Adviser said “the initiative of Npower was not to create permanent job of Thirty Thousand Naira Monthly salary for the beneficiaries but to train them on employment skills.
“It is also meant to make them know how they can be Independent and be employers of labour after they must have passed through two years of training”.
He however lamented that it was unfortunate that many of the beneficiaries were not taking the opportunity they had seriously with the reports reaching the government that most of them did not always report at their places of training.
Instead, Braimah said the beneficiaries preferred sharing the stipends the received with the head of each organization they belong”
He, however, appealed to the beneficiaries to take the initiative serious with both hands by being punctual at their places of training and always make use of the devices given them for knowledge enhancement.
He added that they should imbibe the good habits before their exit from the programme pointing out that Npower was not a permanent job for anybody.
Speaking earlier, the National Amir of the ‘The Companion’, Alhaji Thabit Adewale Sonaike, said the association as part of its biennial elective national conference, decided to discuss the scourge of unemployment among the youth in Nigeria.
Unemployment, according to the Amir, has been the root causes of all social vices the country is presently facing which should at this stage be the collective responsibility of both parents and government.
“Without doubt, Unemployment and insecurity are two of the major problems facing our country today to the extent that President Buhari, used them as major campaign issues during the last two general elections.
” But it’s just unfortunate that the crisis of unemployment in present Nigeria has assumed a frightening dimension bedeviling the lives of Nigerians , especially the youth, causing increased militancy, violent crimes, kidnapping and other forms of insecurity one could think of”, he posited.
Alhaji Thabit, quoted the present minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige at one of the open even of recent when he (the Minister) said; “incessant increase of unemployment in the country was alarming, with projected to reach 33.5 percent by the year 2020 with consequences that are better imagined if the trend is not urgently reversed”
In his paper, the Guest Lecturer, Dr. Bashir Kurfi, called on government at all levels to be be more creative in initiating policies and programmes that could lead to creating employment opportunities for the teeming youth across the country.
He said; “idleness is what is causing various insecurity the country is presently facing”.
Dr. Bashir, also called on wealthy individuals, most especially those that have amassed wealth through public office to always invest in Nigeria by establish companies capable of employing reasonable numbers of youth that used to the situation in the past.
He cited the examples of the likes of Lever Brothers, Leventis, Bhojson, and many more that always went to tertiary institutions on their graduation ceremony day to pick best brains to employ.
