Nigerian govt. to create 60,000 for Youths with N5.5billion ptogramme

A new scheme aimed at empowering young people in Nigeria has been created by the Federal Government following approval Wednesday by the Federal Executive Council (FEC). It is targeted at those within the age bracket of 18 and 25.

The Minister for Budget and Planning, Udoma Udoma made the announcement while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting of the Council which President Muhammadu Buhari chaired.

According to the Minister, the new scheme is called the N-Power knowledge multi-track youth empowerment programme and under it 12,000 unemployed or under-employed graduates aged 18-25 yrs will be trained and given relevant devices afterwards.

He also said the training will be on mobile computing and commonly used electronic devices, adding that the programme, which will be run under the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP), is open to all unemployed graduates.

The Minister added that after the training, each of the initial 12,000 selected and trained “will be empowered to train five other youth, leading to additional 60,000 jobs”

He said the contract for the programme was awarded to Softcome Ltd working with the officials of NSIP, saying that an additional 207,000 will be spent for work tools.

He then put the total cost of the scheme at N5,595,669,250, adding that the completion period is nine months.