One of the social intervention programmes of the Nigerian government, N-Power,has denied sponsoring election campaign.
The denial came after the platform official twitter handle came under fire for posting a campaign flyer of Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari with its N-power logo on Wednesday.
The flyer tagged #RaveforBuhari stated that N-power beneficiaries will embark on a walk at 12noon from two points; the Unity Fountain and Under the bridge of Area 1 to APC Presidential Campaign office in Abuja.
But Nigerians reacted to the post and questioned N-Power on its involvement in the forthcoming election, stating that it was meant to be a non-partisan platform.
“This is unethical. N-Power is a public institution, funded by public money and shouldn’t be engaging in political campaign – more so because you wield financial power over your volunteers which makes them succumb to your action, even if they are otherwise inclined.An abuse,” a twitter user @Adekunleth tweeted.
This is unethical.
N-Power is a public institution, funded by public money and shouldn’t be engaging in political campaign – more so because you wield financial power over your volunteers which makes them succumb to your action, even if they are otherwise inclined.
An abuse. https://t.co/508p6ILsMq
ADÉKÚNLÉ (@adekunleth) February 5, 2019
But N-Power denied the allegations and stated that the campaign was organised by some of the beneficiaries of the programme.
“This was organized by some N-Power Beneficiaries and powered by an independent platform. None of the resources of Government have been used for this,” N-power tweeted.
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Meanwhile in January Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) raised an alarm that alleged the recruitment of beneficiaries of N-Power programme as ad-hoc staff to rig the general elections.
CUPP’s Spokesperson, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, disclosed that the group was in possession of reliable information that Amina Zakari will be in charge of the recruitment and training of wards, local governments and states collation and returning officers.
The group alleged that the move was in line with the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration resolve to rig the elections.
He, therefore, enjoined the National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure that the commission does not recruit any N’Power beneficiary as ad-hoc staff for the general elections.
“President Buhari has said that the main thrust of the N’Power scheme is to harness Nigeria’s young demography through appropriate skills development, providing a structure for large-scale and relevant skills acquisition and development, and linking outcomes to fixing inadequate public services and stimulating the economy.
“Yet under his administration, Nigeria attained the highest number of extremely poor people in the world, with 87 million people in extreme poverty and growing by six people every minute.
N-Power Volunteer Corps is part of the ruling All Progressives Congress’ Social Investment Programmes, SIP, under which 500,000 graduates had so far been recruited.
It is currently in operation in the 36 states of Nigeria. The main thrust of the N-Power scheme is to harness Nigeria’s young demography through appropriate skill development, providing a structure for large scale and relevant work skills acquisition and development, and linking outcomes to fixing inadequate public services and stimulating the larger economy.
Beneficiaries are engaged on different areas of public service, including education (N-Teach), health (N-Health), agriculture (N-Agro), building/construction (N-Build). Beneficiaries are paid a monthly stipend of N30,000 during their period of engagement.
