N-Power deployment has been a hot topic lately because of the delay encountered in the preparation for posting of 2017 applicants who were successfully onboarded on the N-Power NPVN Portal in May, 2018. It is good to inform you that the long awaited posting is ongoing now.
Consequently, I have to take a look at everything that you will need to know about the n-power deployment and things to do in order to be qualified for your first n-power stipend that will be due on Friday, August 31st, 2018.
N-Power spokesman, Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede during a facebook live chat session on Friday, July 20th, 2018 highlighted the processes involved in the deployment, as well as, giving the necessary information concerning the 2017 npower beneficiaries.
Mr Afolabi's message is transcribed below:
Good evening Nigeria and good evening my fellow Nigerian youths! I hope that it's been a productive week for you and for everyone of those that concerns you. Above all, what's your weather like? It's been a rainy day here in Abuja and i am also told it's been raining in a few parts of Nigeria. So, let me apologize first on behalf of any of our mobile networks and telecom networks that may not allow you to connect today or you may have some type of a weak connection because of the weather condition in your location. But having said that, the good thing about this medium and the good thing about technology is that you are able to re-watch this and that in some days you will get the live transcript.
Today, my focus is primarily on the 2017 applicants who before now have been preselected and I am happy to say that as at today, I can say that you are finally selected.
Firstly, let me start by congratulating you and saying that your long wait is now over. I have often said to you that this government is a government that means what they say, and yet things may delay sometimes, the delay many times is not intentional and we need to understand that the whole lot of things come together, a whole lot of cycles, a whole lot of process come together to make happen whatever it is that you and I get to enjoy or get to benefit from as Nigerians. One thing is certain we keep our promise and that is exactly what we have done this week by announcing to you.
I do know that when I had the last Facebook chat (end of June) a whole of you were having queries around. You wanted a specific date in July, but I’m glad to announce now that you do have your specific date. You all would be formally engaged into payroll of the npower batch 2 volunteers from August 1st 2018. So that’s what it means, August 1st 2018 is your formal date of engagement. Just as you have your colleagues in the batch 1 that had a formal date of engagement as December 1st 2016, your formal date of engagement is August 1st 2018.
Payment of n-power stipend to 2017 beneficiaries:
Now why am I saying this, you also need to understand that before you can have an end, just as you have now the end of the process, there are processes that happen and I don’t know why in those processes I have seen a lot of you come on social media and talk about “you want to be paid” for going through a process. I don’t understand, you are basically saying I should pay you for application period or that we should pay you for the period you were still going through an application process, writing your test or the period of physical verification or the period of on-boarding on our portal. Sorry, I think it is important and that’s why I say I am speaking to the 2017.
What is important for you to understand is, this whole community of npower volunteers that you are being inducted into is a community of serious business. It’s a community wherein we pay for work done and it is a community that I will also encourage all of your senior colleagues now, those who are in the 2016 batch and who I like to say are now veterans in the N-Power process and in the N-Power family, I’m sure they will also play a lot of roles in this engagement with you to let you know that it is money for work done. As I have often said to them and I say to you now that npower is not “money for the boys” neither is it “money for the girls”, it’s not what you call “money by the side”, it’s not that, npower basically is a lifeline that has been extended by Mr president himself, president Muhammadu Buhari to you as Nigerian youth to say that for the fact that you have been unemployed for a few years or a few months, but you are in the unemployed category. This is a lifeline that has been extended to you to empower you, it is a lifeline that has got a time date, it’s a lifeline it’s a 2 year full time paid volunteer program wherein you volunteer in any of the three categories of your choice. You must know that no one allotted any of it for you, you’ve allotted yourself to either be in the teaching category where you’ll work as a teaching assistant in our public schools or in the health category where you will support our community primary health centres in every capacity that they may deem fit and you also support our farmers in the rural communities as an agric extension advisers.
So that’s what you have signed up to, it is a community experience that allows you as well to learn because your leaning is what we asked you to start in the month of May. So when I reached out to you and we announced and said that you should go and on-board yourself onto the portal for those of you who were preselected, such that you can begin to learn, that’s the N-Power, that’s the beginning of npower, N-Power is a learn, is a work and is an entrepreneurship program. So your learning, rather from learning commencing from august 1, you have an advantage that the 2016 batch did not have and that’s the advantage that started or you ought to have started learning since the month of May and lets understand that all the materials that you have encountered and you will continue to encounter throughout your 2 year period are investments, these materials have been paid for by the federal government of Nigeria on your behalf and so for me really you should all be appreciative of these investments that have been extended to you and to which you now have access to rather than demanding that “o because I got on-boarded in May, someone is owing you some stipend and demanding for backlogs”, please that should not be counted as the spirit and the attitude of N-Power volunteers, and I’m sure that beyond this chat, your fellow veterans, the 2016 batch would also be able to lend a conversation to this and be able to further indoctrinate you or induct you into the ethos of the npower program. Let me say to you that As you know, learning never stops so you should grab every opportunity to learn with both hands. I congratulate and salute those of you that have been using and engaging in the learning materials in preparation for the day called August 1, when you will be required to begin to apply those learning in your work postings. Please there cannot be any form of stipend payment prior to August 1.
Also, if you recall my chat in the month of May, I said that there are three components of NPower, One is the ability to learn, two is the ability to work for you to earn, and three is the ability to select a device. I did say to you at the time that whilst these three over three makes up N-Power, I could not commit to you earlier than then regarding the second component which is work for you to earn and the third, which is the device selection. But that I could commit to you and I did, in that month of May to say that we were going to onboard you unto the npvn platform where you can then begin to access your learning. Now that we onboarded you into that platform was not in any way an engagement for payment. So please I hope this will be the end of that and I would not have to read up on it. At any time we hear that again, we would consider you being mischievous and we may have to take actions against you.
Who should exit N-Power
Please understand that when you get into a program, there are rules of engagement. Also, as you get into your formal engagement from August 1, even in preparation to August 1, we would continue to share the rules of engagement of N-Power with you. It is a full-time engagement, please if you already have something doing or if you are in any form of full-time learning even if it is advanced learning (Masters or PhD) that is full-time and will not allow you concentrate or have the time to be in your primary place of assignment (PPA). Also if already you are working somewhere and your intention was to make this money by the side or if you had no intention whatsoever to go to your PPA, may I advise you as a brother to a brother/sister that you should please exit yourself from the program or don’t even confirm your attendance or enrolment in the program. In doing this you play a role of a good citizen. Why? For every one of you (that is the 300,000 that are pre-selected) there are perhaps 300,000 to 1.8 million, a 1:6 ratio that there are 6 people available in our waiting list that can replace you. There will be no point if you know you do not need this lifeline, I encourage you as a good citizen of Federal Republic of Nigeria to kindly decline so that your fellow brothers and sisters who are in the waiting list may be able to utilize this opportunity for their own development. For those of you who have gone through the arduous process of application, the testing, the physical verification and the onboarding, this shows that you truly desire this program and a further confirmation to us that this is an opportunity well deserved. This is an opportunity that our Principal, my principal, the President, The Vice President, truly believes you should enjoy and maximize to the fullest.
Let me re-invite my 2016 beneficiaries to join me to induct you into the N-Power community. We are a happy family of youths and Nigerians, we are serious youths and we do indeed maximize this opportunity. I also want to welcome you to the Hall of Fame of a lot of our volunteers who have done tremendous things with this program. I continue to mention many of you who also will continue to be a source of encouragement. I cannot forget those who work very closely with me, who are part of your volunteer team. The likes of Dominic, the likes of Azubuike who works assiduously and continuously sometimes even beyond the five days of the week you all get paid for. These are the stories I hope will inspire you, these are the stories that I hope will encourage you are these are the stories that I hope will implore you to really give up your best into this, you are coming in at the time when also your seniors in this program would be launching a lot of community activity, so this is also my charge to you to join them, a lot of them have seen preparation around launching civic duties for PVC collection, engagement in the electioneering process and as you know we are inching closer to the electioneering process, they would be launching programs around “STOP CODEINE” in several communities, they would be launching community development support as school go on the long vacation, a lot of you in your community will be launching what you call an holiday camps, holiday coaching, after school coaching programs, please endear yourselves with these opportunities, endear yourselves with your fellow volunteers and give off your best and always remember, this is one place where the leaders of tomorrow emerge and you all are a part of that.
Having said that, I will quickly just run through what the process is between now and when you are formally deployed and also launch what I call the email where you can send questions and comments when you do have it and I will let you go for the night so that you can go be with your family for the rest of the weekend, so as we’ve already announced, you have been preselected and by so doing we have sent out your list to your various states.
Structure of the N-Power programme
Perhaps I should back track a bit and say to you that the way we run the N-Power programme, the structure of the organization or roll out of the N-Power programme is that we have partners in the state called the STATE FOCAL PERSONS and so we will be able to identify for you who your FOCAL PERSONS are , in some states they are honourable commissioners, in some states they are special advisers to the governors, they are all very senior people in the government.
I’m also aware that in most states, they have set up offices that is Focal Person for the National Social Investment programme. Perhaps its also worthy of you to know that you are benefitting in one of the four (4) components of the NSIP. NSIP is an investment again that the Mr President put aside, 500 billion is voted every year and appropriated be the National Assembly for the Social investment program that comprises of Npower which you are a beneficiary today aand then we have the Home Grown School Feeding (NHGSF) where we feed kids, not only do we feed primary 1–3 pupils in our public primary schools but on the back end of it, our farmers grow the food and the women in the community cook the food and package the food for our kids in the public primary schools. The third component is the Government Enterprise Empowerment Program popularly known as GEEP where we give loans, as small loans, credit loans to our traders, artisans and market men and women. Loans from 50–100 thousand thereabout and the last but not the least component is really the Conditional cash transfer where we give money to the poor in our various communities through some ranking that would have been done in assistance with the world bank.
Those are the four components of the National Social Investment Programmes and for which you are beneficiaries of one of them which is the one that is targeted for the youth so because of that we have all these suite under the Social investment and in the state we have the focal person that have been appointed by our states governors in all the states and in FCT by the Honorable minister of the FCT to coordinate this program on our behalf, so by that I mean we have already sent the deployment list now to the state and also you will also be aware of the NOA, they are our federal partners who are domiciled in each of the states and local government across Nigeria,they were your first port of call, they were the ones that worked with us to conduct the physical verification, so what we have done as at today the 20th July as we announced is that these list of all you who are successful have been sent to the focal persons and also been copied to the state director of the NOA, we have first encouraged our state director’s in the NOA that the same way they disseminated the list across Local government in every state to be able to physically verify you where-in now you are now being on-boarded and formally engaged, we would also advise that they could assist us to please paste the list as well in every Local government, so that some of you who still are not sure of your selection process may have the opportunity of going to check the list at the local government secretariat.
N-Power Deployment
What does that therefore mean? Now that the list is with our state partners, from Monday which will be July 23rd , they will begin the process of deploying you to what is now going to be your Primary place of assignment, lets also remember that you will be deployed based on Local government basis, so there is no need for you to want to wander or miander around, you will be deployed based on the same Local government you gave us as Local government place of residence where you also carried out your physical verification. So for someone like me in Abuja here and if I were to be in the Npower programme and im resident in Amac council, I will expect that my place of primary assignment be it Teach, health centre, be it the Agric farm will be within Amac.
So our state partners will do the process of, they will conduct the process of assigning you to each of your various PPAs and once that is completed, they will then inform you where in you should come and pick your deployment letters. Again I would charge council, your seniors, my veterans in Npower, because this is community based, they will be able to better guide you where to go, what I know by structure is that those who would be going to, those of you who are in the Teach component, your SUBEB or your Local government education secretary in your local government will most likely be the ones having your letters, so but once its ready, they would communicate to you, your phone numbers are with them, they either send you bulk SMS or they will go to your various state’s broadcasting media to reach you, but I can imagine that you will pick up your letters from the Local government education secretary for those of you in the N-Teach component. For those of you in the Agro component will be to pick up your letters from the Agro Development Program (ADP) in your local government because every state has got the ADPs with offices in every local government, so I’m sure those of you in the agro program will most likely pick up your letters there. Those of you in the Health category will likely pick up your letters from the Primary Health Care agency or maybe in your Local government secretariat again or the agency that control the Primary Health Care centers in that local government.
So we would also get more information from our state partners and continue too state you with our channels and will communicate with you, but I would want to enjoin your senior brothers and sisters in the programme to please play this support roll for you and be able to point you in the right direction where you will pick your letters, now but let warn don’t begin to bombard them from Monday NO!, understand that I said august 1st is when you are formally engaged and is also when you are expected to commence work. Give or take, please give our partners up on to Friday next week to contact you to pick up your letters.
We hope you will comply with us. Immediately you pick up your posting letters, you will need to play one role. The role, you need to play is to go to your place of primary assignment and report immediately. For example, if you are living in Benin city, Edo state and you have been posted to Emotan Primary School, you will need to report to the school and headmaster or headmistress would acknowledge your acceptance and stamped as the case may be, that you have been confirmed and accepted as N-power volunteer assistant teacher. This confirmation letter would attest that you have been deployed and have resumed at your primary place of assignment.
Your role is to log on your npvn portal where you were onboarded and upload the scan or Whatsapp copy of the stamped or acceptance letter as a proof that you have been deployed successfully.
Please, note that beneficiaries have till 10th August to upload the scanned copy of their acceptance letters. Only those beneficiaries who successfully by 11th August 2018 upload their confirmation of resumption at their assigned place of primary assignment on their npvn portals would be processed for payment.
Please be informed that we are not saying these because the federal government doesn’t have money to pay our beneficiaries. The point is that the money is for work done, which is the first proof of me knowing that you have gone to pick up your posting letters and you have resumed at your primary place of assignments. This showed that the head of your PPA must have confirmed by that letter you have resumed. The beneficiaries who upload their acceptance letters by 10th August would be qualified and processed for your desirous payment which commences August 2018.
The reason while the deadline to upload your acceptance letters is that your veterans colleagues in Npower will also inform you that payroll cut off on the 15th of every month, so for you to get paid at the end of every month.
Therefore, what it means if you don’t upload your confirmation letter by 11th August, we would not be able to collate and do necessary approval and processing by the 15th August so that you can get paid by 31st August, then you have nobody else to blame but yourself. That is why we are pre-notifying you now so that nobody begins to cry foul when that time comes.
You will also need to note that you visiting your PPA the first time to get acceptance and upload your acknowledgment letters and got paid is not the only check. Again I will want my veteran in Npower programme to let yosu know that Npower has monitoring team, that reports on a monthly basis and each month, we received a report from our beneficiaries who abscond or do not go to work. When we get these reports, there is what we called “Payment Hold”. We place such beneficiaries on payment hold and after a certain time if the beneficiaries do not regularize themselves by proofing to have continued going to work. We will exit you from the N-Power scheme. I think it is important to let you know this. I am saying this to let you know from experience and field experience. You may not know this but your seniors in the programme would also inform you. By the grace of God, I have visited every part of the country and I have visited many places of primary assignments. I have also been together with our states partners instituted as a control unit in Npower. Please, I will encourage you to abide by the rules. It is a community that is governed by rules.
My principal taught me when I was in Federal Government College Warri, he says “No society can exist without rules” Rules exist for the common good of all in the society. To survive every society, you must be rewarded or punished. There is a reward for good action and the reward for bad action is punishment. Please, I hope you understand me.
The reason why you are all by the grace of God to be the batch II of the Npower programme is because your senior and veterans in the programme are following the rules and we have continued to refine the rules and we have kept it to be the brand that you now to be inducted into it and proud by it and bearer of it.
This is not for the benefit of the majority of you who I believe will maximize the time and use the opportunity to empower themselves beyond this opportunity. I am saying this to few of 1 out of every 12 who may want to test our process or resolve of the federal government. It is a serious programme and we are a happy family that abides by the rules.I think haven said that, I would have dealt with all issues that have been of concern and let me therefore say to you that we’ve also seen a few concerns around the process of on-boarding. Now the point you need to know is that we had announced and we have been announcing and we ramped up announcements earlier this week for some of our brothers and sisters who either though have not gone to on-board themselves I think they’re doing announcements that we have between 13,000 to 18,000 people thereabout that we expected to go and un-board themselves that have not on-boarded themselves. So what does that mean? Now the list that has gone to our state partners now was cut off at 12 midnight today July 20th, 12 midnight or 12am July 20th so if you only on-boarded yourself at 12:01 July 20th or only on-boarded yourself any moment beyond then even as I’m speaking now, if you have only just on-boarded yourself, then chances are that your name will not be on that list, now there is also nothing to worry about, we are happy to note that a lot more people responded to our call in this last week and we are happy to note that so for that reason we would generate a supplementary list so let me then also say that to those of you who really are still interested but have not gone to on-board. I know 6pm today was given as the deadline so perhaps we just extend it even to Sunday 12 midnight which is July 22, from Monday when we all resume back to work we will begin the process of replacement.
As I said to you and perhaps some of you also who would listen to me today and will be touched to say I really should not deprive others because I don’t need this, I may want the 30,000 naira at the end of the month but I don’t need this and you really want to relinquish, you still have the time to relinquish before we exit you when we discover that you are not attending your PPA. So what it means therefore is that from Monday we will begin the process of replacement so all of you, be it those of you who on-boarded after our 12 midnight of this morning or those of you that we will be replacing from the waiting list, we will still process you and at some point in time, we will send supplementary list to the states where you can then go ahead to pick your letters. So don’t worry, at the end of the day we got all of you covered so don’t worry but let us start phase by phase. The good thing is, be it 13,000, be it15,000, be it 18,000, you are less than somewhat just about 5% of the total number that we require. So that the greater majority of you I congratulate you again and I give you another clap, you know that the greater majority of you have on-boarded yourself and you’re obviously proceeding towards deployment. I’m aware that few of you have complaints, I’ve seen the issue of union bank and UBA regarding payment account details on the portal, for all of you that use UBA and union bank, we are going to review and I’m sure in the next few days the support team will get across to you to let you know and I’m sure that you can also confirm in your portal that the changes have been made but we are definitely going to work on those of you. I recon whilst you were on-boarding your applications because union bank and UBA are both “U”, there may have been certain challenges in the dropdown menu, but we will rectify it, we’ve seen a lot of the complaints and for those of you who might still have complaints, there is an email volunteersupport@npvn.ng.
So if you still have some few complaints you can send your complaints there but complains around account details missing especially those of you that were in the 2016 waiting list batch, it’s been noted. Complaints around Union bank and UBA, it’s been noted. Complaints around confirmation or no confirmation, I’ve gotten complains that some of you said that because of these errors in either your bank account or maybe your first name/last name you didn’t confirm, you’re right. You should not be confirming what is not accurate and some of you actually confirmed even though the details are not accurate.
Again, all of this complaints we are noting them but I’m happy that it is a fewer number of you that are have these complaints than the greater majority of you. So please it is important that we correct this things now, let me tell you just as u know, your seniors would have told you that the advantage that you have is that we have taken the opportunity to pre-validate most of you, particularly your payment details just to ensure that on the first day after you have been deployed you don’t have a payment delay challenge, so that’s we do all that we do now just to ensure that we don’t have the challenge so please ensure that if you still have any of these complaints you reach us swiftly, we are also committed to being able to respond swiftly. There were also complaints that some of you have edited and awaiting pending approvals, that’s process is also been escalated, sorry expedited now so you may want to check because I know in the last 24 to 48 hours quite a few thousands of those pending approvals have been processed so you may want to login again to check and hopefully you will see that the changes u desire have already been captured. So I think that really is what it is, I don’t know that there is anything, let me commend abdulahi zakar from niger state, akim from Oshogbo, gozie mbem from owerri, these are some other active volunteers who are happy and ready to show the ethos of the npower team on this program. I think…. What else…sam uzokife you applied for Nagro but its showing Nteach, well I would want to say that you quickly send a mail to the volunteer support as I have done because that’s has an implication. If you are showing Nteach it means that’s you have been classified as Nteach and your name will be deployed to a school but if u really want Nagro then I think lets escalate that to the volunteer support as I have mentioned and we will get to it. I’ve dealt with the issue of deployment letter, but then let me restate that don’t start t bombard our partners by Monday.
N-Power Deployment letters: Please let’s not bombard our partner with messages by Monday, it’s not possible for them, but they are being pushed with the pressure of the entire public, the list was sent on Friday and it will be dealt with on Monday, they will send to the state local government where the state focal person resides he or she will now have to disaggregate to each of the institution in the state, in the local government who will then have to take a censor of who to go to school or health centres. We are sure they will do the needful in deploying you, because they want you to help in the community. So please be patient and let’s hear from them on when and where you’ll pick up your letters, but as I have said you’ll likely pick up your letter from the L.G.A secretariat or Health centre or Agro Development program at your Local Government.
One thing to be assured is that you won’t have to travel away from your municipality, because that is where you’ll be posted.
Last point of N-Power 3 processes are;
· Learning;
· Working to earn;
· Devices: Working with partners like bank of industry, through a 20 month program.
Your device will be uploaded on your portal which we will let you when it’s available, but you should know it takes time.
N-Tax
The fourth component of N-Power is N-Tax, but you should know that we don’t deploy them, they are deployed by the federal ministry of finance and in conjunction of the joint tax force, and some of the benefactors have been activated far back as 2016 and 2017. We can’t deploy you but you have to wait till you’re called upon for training or possible deployment by the federal ministry of finance, the VAIDS team and the Tax board.
SUMMARY
1. Commencement in the program is from August 1st 2018 which will run till July 21, 2020.
2. Payment of stipends will be from August.
3. Once you’ve have received your deployment letter, please ensue you resume at your PPA, when you resume ensure the Head of Primary Assignment of your PPA receives you, he or she will have to stamp your letter or give you an acceptance letter.
4. Please make sure you upload it on your npvn portal on or before August 10th, by August 11th we will go back to the portal and only those of you that have uploaded your acceptance from your PPA would be processed for payments of stipends which will be due by end of August.
5. N-Power is money for work done, only if you show prove that you’ve resume, why won’t you be paid? Some of the previous set that went only once to their PPA, you should know that N-Power has Payment Hold, when you’re reported that you do not attend work and we will put your payment on Hold, which by some weeks if not rectified you’ll be exited from the program.
6. Finally, if there is any 300,000 of you people, your brothers, sisters waiting out here that wish they were in your shoes, please If you know there is no intension of you to fulfill the requirements of this program, please don’t bother to confirm yourselves, so the slots can be given to at least 1.5 million people who are waiting for the luck to shine on them.
On that note, I wish you a very happy weekend, and a very impactful time, and this is just the beginning. As one of my collogues have said to you, never despise your days of humble begins. Right now will ensure that the communication teams show videos of their benefits to see how this opportunities has been used properly.
Also find time to appreciate our President General Buhari and Vice President Prof Osibanjo for their splendours work, and also my technical team for also making this possible.
As you start, you’ll be able to complete this program successful.
THANK YOU.
What an insightful session with Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede. Hope your questions have been answered. Congratulations!
Mr Afolabi's message is transcribed below:
Good evening Nigeria and good evening my fellow Nigerian youths! I hope that it's been a productive week for you and for everyone of those that concerns you. Above all, what's your weather like? It's been a rainy day here in Abuja and i am also told it's been raining in a few parts of Nigeria. So, let me apologize first on behalf of any of our mobile networks and telecom networks that may not allow you to connect today or you may have some type of a weak connection because of the weather condition in your location. But having said that, the good thing about this medium and the good thing about technology is that you are able to re-watch this and that in some days you will get the live transcript.
Today, my focus is primarily on the 2017 applicants who before now have been preselected and I am happy to say that as at today, I can say that you are finally selected.
Firstly, let me start by congratulating you and saying that your long wait is now over. I have often said to you that this government is a government that means what they say, and yet things may delay sometimes, the delay many times is not intentional and we need to understand that the whole lot of things come together, a whole lot of cycles, a whole lot of process come together to make happen whatever it is that you and I get to enjoy or get to benefit from as Nigerians. One thing is certain we keep our promise and that is exactly what we have done this week by announcing to you.
I do know that when I had the last Facebook chat (end of June) a whole of you were having queries around. You wanted a specific date in July, but I’m glad to announce now that you do have your specific date. You all would be formally engaged into payroll of the npower batch 2 volunteers from August 1st 2018. So that’s what it means, August 1st 2018 is your formal date of engagement. Just as you have your colleagues in the batch 1 that had a formal date of engagement as December 1st 2016, your formal date of engagement is August 1st 2018.
Payment of n-power stipend to 2017 beneficiaries:
Now why am I saying this, you also need to understand that before you can have an end, just as you have now the end of the process, there are processes that happen and I don’t know why in those processes I have seen a lot of you come on social media and talk about “you want to be paid” for going through a process. I don’t understand, you are basically saying I should pay you for application period or that we should pay you for the period you were still going through an application process, writing your test or the period of physical verification or the period of on-boarding on our portal. Sorry, I think it is important and that’s why I say I am speaking to the 2017.
What is important for you to understand is, this whole community of npower volunteers that you are being inducted into is a community of serious business. It’s a community wherein we pay for work done and it is a community that I will also encourage all of your senior colleagues now, those who are in the 2016 batch and who I like to say are now veterans in the N-Power process and in the N-Power family, I’m sure they will also play a lot of roles in this engagement with you to let you know that it is money for work done. As I have often said to them and I say to you now that npower is not “money for the boys” neither is it “money for the girls”, it’s not what you call “money by the side”, it’s not that, npower basically is a lifeline that has been extended by Mr president himself, president Muhammadu Buhari to you as Nigerian youth to say that for the fact that you have been unemployed for a few years or a few months, but you are in the unemployed category. This is a lifeline that has been extended to you to empower you, it is a lifeline that has got a time date, it’s a lifeline it’s a 2 year full time paid volunteer program wherein you volunteer in any of the three categories of your choice. You must know that no one allotted any of it for you, you’ve allotted yourself to either be in the teaching category where you’ll work as a teaching assistant in our public schools or in the health category where you will support our community primary health centres in every capacity that they may deem fit and you also support our farmers in the rural communities as an agric extension advisers.
So that’s what you have signed up to, it is a community experience that allows you as well to learn because your leaning is what we asked you to start in the month of May. So when I reached out to you and we announced and said that you should go and on-board yourself onto the portal for those of you who were preselected, such that you can begin to learn, that’s the N-Power, that’s the beginning of npower, N-Power is a learn, is a work and is an entrepreneurship program. So your learning, rather from learning commencing from august 1, you have an advantage that the 2016 batch did not have and that’s the advantage that started or you ought to have started learning since the month of May and lets understand that all the materials that you have encountered and you will continue to encounter throughout your 2 year period are investments, these materials have been paid for by the federal government of Nigeria on your behalf and so for me really you should all be appreciative of these investments that have been extended to you and to which you now have access to rather than demanding that “o because I got on-boarded in May, someone is owing you some stipend and demanding for backlogs”, please that should not be counted as the spirit and the attitude of N-Power volunteers, and I’m sure that beyond this chat, your fellow veterans, the 2016 batch would also be able to lend a conversation to this and be able to further indoctrinate you or induct you into the ethos of the npower program. Let me say to you that As you know, learning never stops so you should grab every opportunity to learn with both hands. I congratulate and salute those of you that have been using and engaging in the learning materials in preparation for the day called August 1, when you will be required to begin to apply those learning in your work postings. Please there cannot be any form of stipend payment prior to August 1.
Also, if you recall my chat in the month of May, I said that there are three components of NPower, One is the ability to learn, two is the ability to work for you to earn, and three is the ability to select a device. I did say to you at the time that whilst these three over three makes up N-Power, I could not commit to you earlier than then regarding the second component which is work for you to earn and the third, which is the device selection. But that I could commit to you and I did, in that month of May to say that we were going to onboard you unto the npvn platform where you can then begin to access your learning. Now that we onboarded you into that platform was not in any way an engagement for payment. So please I hope this will be the end of that and I would not have to read up on it. At any time we hear that again, we would consider you being mischievous and we may have to take actions against you.
Who should exit N-Power
Please understand that when you get into a program, there are rules of engagement. Also, as you get into your formal engagement from August 1, even in preparation to August 1, we would continue to share the rules of engagement of N-Power with you. It is a full-time engagement, please if you already have something doing or if you are in any form of full-time learning even if it is advanced learning (Masters or PhD) that is full-time and will not allow you concentrate or have the time to be in your primary place of assignment (PPA). Also if already you are working somewhere and your intention was to make this money by the side or if you had no intention whatsoever to go to your PPA, may I advise you as a brother to a brother/sister that you should please exit yourself from the program or don’t even confirm your attendance or enrolment in the program. In doing this you play a role of a good citizen. Why? For every one of you (that is the 300,000 that are pre-selected) there are perhaps 300,000 to 1.8 million, a 1:6 ratio that there are 6 people available in our waiting list that can replace you. There will be no point if you know you do not need this lifeline, I encourage you as a good citizen of Federal Republic of Nigeria to kindly decline so that your fellow brothers and sisters who are in the waiting list may be able to utilize this opportunity for their own development. For those of you who have gone through the arduous process of application, the testing, the physical verification and the onboarding, this shows that you truly desire this program and a further confirmation to us that this is an opportunity well deserved. This is an opportunity that our Principal, my principal, the President, The Vice President, truly believes you should enjoy and maximize to the fullest.
Let me re-invite my 2016 beneficiaries to join me to induct you into the N-Power community. We are a happy family of youths and Nigerians, we are serious youths and we do indeed maximize this opportunity. I also want to welcome you to the Hall of Fame of a lot of our volunteers who have done tremendous things with this program. I continue to mention many of you who also will continue to be a source of encouragement. I cannot forget those who work very closely with me, who are part of your volunteer team. The likes of Dominic, the likes of Azubuike who works assiduously and continuously sometimes even beyond the five days of the week you all get paid for. These are the stories I hope will inspire you, these are the stories that I hope will encourage you are these are the stories that I hope will implore you to really give up your best into this, you are coming in at the time when also your seniors in this program would be launching a lot of community activity, so this is also my charge to you to join them, a lot of them have seen preparation around launching civic duties for PVC collection, engagement in the electioneering process and as you know we are inching closer to the electioneering process, they would be launching programs around “STOP CODEINE” in several communities, they would be launching community development support as school go on the long vacation, a lot of you in your community will be launching what you call an holiday camps, holiday coaching, after school coaching programs, please endear yourselves with these opportunities, endear yourselves with your fellow volunteers and give off your best and always remember, this is one place where the leaders of tomorrow emerge and you all are a part of that.
Having said that, I will quickly just run through what the process is between now and when you are formally deployed and also launch what I call the email where you can send questions and comments when you do have it and I will let you go for the night so that you can go be with your family for the rest of the weekend, so as we’ve already announced, you have been preselected and by so doing we have sent out your list to your various states.
Structure of the N-Power programme
Perhaps I should back track a bit and say to you that the way we run the N-Power programme, the structure of the organization or roll out of the N-Power programme is that we have partners in the state called the STATE FOCAL PERSONS and so we will be able to identify for you who your FOCAL PERSONS are , in some states they are honourable commissioners, in some states they are special advisers to the governors, they are all very senior people in the government.
I’m also aware that in most states, they have set up offices that is Focal Person for the National Social Investment programme. Perhaps its also worthy of you to know that you are benefitting in one of the four (4) components of the NSIP. NSIP is an investment again that the Mr President put aside, 500 billion is voted every year and appropriated be the National Assembly for the Social investment program that comprises of Npower which you are a beneficiary today aand then we have the Home Grown School Feeding (NHGSF) where we feed kids, not only do we feed primary 1–3 pupils in our public primary schools but on the back end of it, our farmers grow the food and the women in the community cook the food and package the food for our kids in the public primary schools. The third component is the Government Enterprise Empowerment Program popularly known as GEEP where we give loans, as small loans, credit loans to our traders, artisans and market men and women. Loans from 50–100 thousand thereabout and the last but not the least component is really the Conditional cash transfer where we give money to the poor in our various communities through some ranking that would have been done in assistance with the world bank.
Those are the four components of the National Social Investment Programmes and for which you are beneficiaries of one of them which is the one that is targeted for the youth so because of that we have all these suite under the Social investment and in the state we have the focal person that have been appointed by our states governors in all the states and in FCT by the Honorable minister of the FCT to coordinate this program on our behalf, so by that I mean we have already sent the deployment list now to the state and also you will also be aware of the NOA, they are our federal partners who are domiciled in each of the states and local government across Nigeria,they were your first port of call, they were the ones that worked with us to conduct the physical verification, so what we have done as at today the 20th July as we announced is that these list of all you who are successful have been sent to the focal persons and also been copied to the state director of the NOA, we have first encouraged our state director’s in the NOA that the same way they disseminated the list across Local government in every state to be able to physically verify you where-in now you are now being on-boarded and formally engaged, we would also advise that they could assist us to please paste the list as well in every Local government, so that some of you who still are not sure of your selection process may have the opportunity of going to check the list at the local government secretariat.
N-Power Deployment
What does that therefore mean? Now that the list is with our state partners, from Monday which will be July 23rd , they will begin the process of deploying you to what is now going to be your Primary place of assignment, lets also remember that you will be deployed based on Local government basis, so there is no need for you to want to wander or miander around, you will be deployed based on the same Local government you gave us as Local government place of residence where you also carried out your physical verification. So for someone like me in Abuja here and if I were to be in the Npower programme and im resident in Amac council, I will expect that my place of primary assignment be it Teach, health centre, be it the Agric farm will be within Amac.
So our state partners will do the process of, they will conduct the process of assigning you to each of your various PPAs and once that is completed, they will then inform you where in you should come and pick your deployment letters. Again I would charge council, your seniors, my veterans in Npower, because this is community based, they will be able to better guide you where to go, what I know by structure is that those who would be going to, those of you who are in the Teach component, your SUBEB or your Local government education secretary in your local government will most likely be the ones having your letters, so but once its ready, they would communicate to you, your phone numbers are with them, they either send you bulk SMS or they will go to your various state’s broadcasting media to reach you, but I can imagine that you will pick up your letters from the Local government education secretary for those of you in the N-Teach component. For those of you in the Agro component will be to pick up your letters from the Agro Development Program (ADP) in your local government because every state has got the ADPs with offices in every local government, so I’m sure those of you in the agro program will most likely pick up your letters there. Those of you in the Health category will likely pick up your letters from the Primary Health Care agency or maybe in your Local government secretariat again or the agency that control the Primary Health Care centers in that local government.
So we would also get more information from our state partners and continue too state you with our channels and will communicate with you, but I would want to enjoin your senior brothers and sisters in the programme to please play this support roll for you and be able to point you in the right direction where you will pick your letters, now but let warn don’t begin to bombard them from Monday NO!, understand that I said august 1st is when you are formally engaged and is also when you are expected to commence work. Give or take, please give our partners up on to Friday next week to contact you to pick up your letters.
We hope you will comply with us. Immediately you pick up your posting letters, you will need to play one role. The role, you need to play is to go to your place of primary assignment and report immediately. For example, if you are living in Benin city, Edo state and you have been posted to Emotan Primary School, you will need to report to the school and headmaster or headmistress would acknowledge your acceptance and stamped as the case may be, that you have been confirmed and accepted as N-power volunteer assistant teacher. This confirmation letter would attest that you have been deployed and have resumed at your primary place of assignment.
Your role is to log on your npvn portal where you were onboarded and upload the scan or Whatsapp copy of the stamped or acceptance letter as a proof that you have been deployed successfully.
Please, note that beneficiaries have till 10th August to upload the scanned copy of their acceptance letters. Only those beneficiaries who successfully by 11th August 2018 upload their confirmation of resumption at their assigned place of primary assignment on their npvn portals would be processed for payment.
Please be informed that we are not saying these because the federal government doesn’t have money to pay our beneficiaries. The point is that the money is for work done, which is the first proof of me knowing that you have gone to pick up your posting letters and you have resumed at your primary place of assignments. This showed that the head of your PPA must have confirmed by that letter you have resumed. The beneficiaries who upload their acceptance letters by 10th August would be qualified and processed for your desirous payment which commences August 2018.
The reason while the deadline to upload your acceptance letters is that your veterans colleagues in Npower will also inform you that payroll cut off on the 15th of every month, so for you to get paid at the end of every month.
Therefore, what it means if you don’t upload your confirmation letter by 11th August, we would not be able to collate and do necessary approval and processing by the 15th August so that you can get paid by 31st August, then you have nobody else to blame but yourself. That is why we are pre-notifying you now so that nobody begins to cry foul when that time comes.
You will also need to note that you visiting your PPA the first time to get acceptance and upload your acknowledgment letters and got paid is not the only check. Again I will want my veteran in Npower programme to let yosu know that Npower has monitoring team, that reports on a monthly basis and each month, we received a report from our beneficiaries who abscond or do not go to work. When we get these reports, there is what we called “Payment Hold”. We place such beneficiaries on payment hold and after a certain time if the beneficiaries do not regularize themselves by proofing to have continued going to work. We will exit you from the N-Power scheme. I think it is important to let you know this. I am saying this to let you know from experience and field experience. You may not know this but your seniors in the programme would also inform you. By the grace of God, I have visited every part of the country and I have visited many places of primary assignments. I have also been together with our states partners instituted as a control unit in Npower. Please, I will encourage you to abide by the rules. It is a community that is governed by rules.
My principal taught me when I was in Federal Government College Warri, he says “No society can exist without rules” Rules exist for the common good of all in the society. To survive every society, you must be rewarded or punished. There is a reward for good action and the reward for bad action is punishment. Please, I hope you understand me.
The reason why you are all by the grace of God to be the batch II of the Npower programme is because your senior and veterans in the programme are following the rules and we have continued to refine the rules and we have kept it to be the brand that you now to be inducted into it and proud by it and bearer of it.
This is not for the benefit of the majority of you who I believe will maximize the time and use the opportunity to empower themselves beyond this opportunity. I am saying this to few of 1 out of every 12 who may want to test our process or resolve of the federal government. It is a serious programme and we are a happy family that abides by the rules.I think haven said that, I would have dealt with all issues that have been of concern and let me therefore say to you that we’ve also seen a few concerns around the process of on-boarding. Now the point you need to know is that we had announced and we have been announcing and we ramped up announcements earlier this week for some of our brothers and sisters who either though have not gone to on-board themselves I think they’re doing announcements that we have between 13,000 to 18,000 people thereabout that we expected to go and un-board themselves that have not on-boarded themselves. So what does that mean? Now the list that has gone to our state partners now was cut off at 12 midnight today July 20th, 12 midnight or 12am July 20th so if you only on-boarded yourself at 12:01 July 20th or only on-boarded yourself any moment beyond then even as I’m speaking now, if you have only just on-boarded yourself, then chances are that your name will not be on that list, now there is also nothing to worry about, we are happy to note that a lot more people responded to our call in this last week and we are happy to note that so for that reason we would generate a supplementary list so let me then also say that to those of you who really are still interested but have not gone to on-board. I know 6pm today was given as the deadline so perhaps we just extend it even to Sunday 12 midnight which is July 22, from Monday when we all resume back to work we will begin the process of replacement.
As I said to you and perhaps some of you also who would listen to me today and will be touched to say I really should not deprive others because I don’t need this, I may want the 30,000 naira at the end of the month but I don’t need this and you really want to relinquish, you still have the time to relinquish before we exit you when we discover that you are not attending your PPA. So what it means therefore is that from Monday we will begin the process of replacement so all of you, be it those of you who on-boarded after our 12 midnight of this morning or those of you that we will be replacing from the waiting list, we will still process you and at some point in time, we will send supplementary list to the states where you can then go ahead to pick your letters. So don’t worry, at the end of the day we got all of you covered so don’t worry but let us start phase by phase. The good thing is, be it 13,000, be it15,000, be it 18,000, you are less than somewhat just about 5% of the total number that we require. So that the greater majority of you I congratulate you again and I give you another clap, you know that the greater majority of you have on-boarded yourself and you’re obviously proceeding towards deployment. I’m aware that few of you have complaints, I’ve seen the issue of union bank and UBA regarding payment account details on the portal, for all of you that use UBA and union bank, we are going to review and I’m sure in the next few days the support team will get across to you to let you know and I’m sure that you can also confirm in your portal that the changes have been made but we are definitely going to work on those of you. I recon whilst you were on-boarding your applications because union bank and UBA are both “U”, there may have been certain challenges in the dropdown menu, but we will rectify it, we’ve seen a lot of the complaints and for those of you who might still have complaints, there is an email volunteersupport@npvn.ng.
So if you still have some few complaints you can send your complaints there but complains around account details missing especially those of you that were in the 2016 waiting list batch, it’s been noted. Complaints around Union bank and UBA, it’s been noted. Complaints around confirmation or no confirmation, I’ve gotten complains that some of you said that because of these errors in either your bank account or maybe your first name/last name you didn’t confirm, you’re right. You should not be confirming what is not accurate and some of you actually confirmed even though the details are not accurate.
Again, all of this complaints we are noting them but I’m happy that it is a fewer number of you that are have these complaints than the greater majority of you. So please it is important that we correct this things now, let me tell you just as u know, your seniors would have told you that the advantage that you have is that we have taken the opportunity to pre-validate most of you, particularly your payment details just to ensure that on the first day after you have been deployed you don’t have a payment delay challenge, so that’s we do all that we do now just to ensure that we don’t have the challenge so please ensure that if you still have any of these complaints you reach us swiftly, we are also committed to being able to respond swiftly. There were also complaints that some of you have edited and awaiting pending approvals, that’s process is also been escalated, sorry expedited now so you may want to check because I know in the last 24 to 48 hours quite a few thousands of those pending approvals have been processed so you may want to login again to check and hopefully you will see that the changes u desire have already been captured. So I think that really is what it is, I don’t know that there is anything, let me commend abdulahi zakar from niger state, akim from Oshogbo, gozie mbem from owerri, these are some other active volunteers who are happy and ready to show the ethos of the npower team on this program. I think…. What else…sam uzokife you applied for Nagro but its showing Nteach, well I would want to say that you quickly send a mail to the volunteer support as I have done because that’s has an implication. If you are showing Nteach it means that’s you have been classified as Nteach and your name will be deployed to a school but if u really want Nagro then I think lets escalate that to the volunteer support as I have mentioned and we will get to it. I’ve dealt with the issue of deployment letter, but then let me restate that don’t start t bombard our partners by Monday.
N-Power Deployment letters: Please let’s not bombard our partner with messages by Monday, it’s not possible for them, but they are being pushed with the pressure of the entire public, the list was sent on Friday and it will be dealt with on Monday, they will send to the state local government where the state focal person resides he or she will now have to disaggregate to each of the institution in the state, in the local government who will then have to take a censor of who to go to school or health centres. We are sure they will do the needful in deploying you, because they want you to help in the community. So please be patient and let’s hear from them on when and where you’ll pick up your letters, but as I have said you’ll likely pick up your letter from the L.G.A secretariat or Health centre or Agro Development program at your Local Government.
One thing to be assured is that you won’t have to travel away from your municipality, because that is where you’ll be posted.
Last point of N-Power 3 processes are;
· Learning;
· Working to earn;
· Devices: Working with partners like bank of industry, through a 20 month program.
Your device will be uploaded on your portal which we will let you when it’s available, but you should know it takes time.
N-Tax
The fourth component of N-Power is N-Tax, but you should know that we don’t deploy them, they are deployed by the federal ministry of finance and in conjunction of the joint tax force, and some of the benefactors have been activated far back as 2016 and 2017. We can’t deploy you but you have to wait till you’re called upon for training or possible deployment by the federal ministry of finance, the VAIDS team and the Tax board.
SUMMARY
1. Commencement in the program is from August 1st 2018 which will run till July 21, 2020.
2. Payment of stipends will be from August.
3. Once you’ve have received your deployment letter, please ensue you resume at your PPA, when you resume ensure the Head of Primary Assignment of your PPA receives you, he or she will have to stamp your letter or give you an acceptance letter.
4. Please make sure you upload it on your npvn portal on or before August 10th, by August 11th we will go back to the portal and only those of you that have uploaded your acceptance from your PPA would be processed for payments of stipends which will be due by end of August.
5. N-Power is money for work done, only if you show prove that you’ve resume, why won’t you be paid? Some of the previous set that went only once to their PPA, you should know that N-Power has Payment Hold, when you’re reported that you do not attend work and we will put your payment on Hold, which by some weeks if not rectified you’ll be exited from the program.
6. Finally, if there is any 300,000 of you people, your brothers, sisters waiting out here that wish they were in your shoes, please If you know there is no intension of you to fulfill the requirements of this program, please don’t bother to confirm yourselves, so the slots can be given to at least 1.5 million people who are waiting for the luck to shine on them.
On that note, I wish you a very happy weekend, and a very impactful time, and this is just the beginning. As one of my collogues have said to you, never despise your days of humble begins. Right now will ensure that the communication teams show videos of their benefits to see how this opportunities has been used properly.
Also find time to appreciate our President General Buhari and Vice President Prof Osibanjo for their splendours work, and also my technical team for also making this possible.
As you start, you’ll be able to complete this program successful.
THANK YOU.
What an insightful session with Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede. Hope your questions have been answered. Congratulations!
Joseph Etim
Joseph Etim (B. Tech) is a blogger, mobile web developer and a tutor with a zeal for positive effects.
Website: Pepetimsblog
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