By Dauda R Pam Maiduguri.
The national N-Power Youth Congress (N-PYC) has called on the federal government to fully absorp the recently disengaged 500,000members of batches A and B into ministries, departments and agencies,MDA,across the country.
The N-PYC National Coordinator, Hon. Joseph Enan Maigari, made the call at a news conference,saturday,in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital,the third news conference in the series on the same issue.
Yet, the Federal Government, has refused to listen to our demands,” he lamented.
He said if government cannot absorb the disengaged members of the N-Power, at least some grants should be paid to each of the 500,000 youths as “exit packages”,wondering why nothing was pronounced by,President Mohammadu Buhari, during Thursday’s presidential broadcast on ENDSARS protests Nationwide.
He said the youths have been disengaged from the N-Power scheme without alternative option to cater for their livelihoods.
“We’re reminding President Muhammadu Buhari once again of his promises to us,” noting that the youths will never relent, until their demands are met. He added that 36 State Representatives of N-Power beneficiaries have earlier also stated alternative demands to government.
“We were struggling in different spheres of life to make a living. “We were also meant to quit the things we were doing, before being engaged into the N-Power scheme,” adding that government also pledged to absorbed the youths on winding up of scheme.
He lamented that the youths had served the country with monthly stipend of N30, 000 and that the said monthly allowances cannot meet up their families’ basic needs, including school fees, electricity and water bills.
“How much does a bag of rice and four-liter of cooking oil cost in the market,” he asked rhetorically.
.On the exit grant packages, he said: “Absorb members that want to work with Federal Government and give them a reasonable exit package to venture into businesses and other entrepreneurial enterprises.”
He wondered why Boko Haram insurgents were empowered under the auspices of “Repentant Boko Haram, while, “The innocent and harmless 500,000 youths have been crying every day, but no one listens our cries,” just as they will continue to be law abiding citizens, so that the President may come to terms and understand that “a hungry man is also an angry person”.
