N-Power Beneficiaries Announce 5-Day Nationwide Protests Over Nonpayment Of One-Year Stipends

N-Power beneficiaries across the country have announced that they will hold protests in all the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) over the nonpayment of their one-year stipends by the Nigerian government.

The N-Power beneficiaries led by Adeshina Adex, lamented that they were not paid their stipends between October 2022 and September 2023.

They noted that though the programme has been suspended by the Nigerian government, they were engaged and their services were utilised before the suspension of the programme.

“Despite repeated attempts to address this issue with the federal government of Nigeria, our pleas have been met with silence and inaction.

It is with this great disappointment that we are announcing our decision because our demands are not met yet,” they said in a statement signed by their National President, Muhammad Habibu Abubakar and Publicity Secretary, Jamilu Zakar Gumel.

They said the protests will be held nationwide from Monday, December 2, 2024 to Friday, December 6, 2024, starting from the National Assembly to the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) office.

SaharaReporters recently reported that a human rights lawyer, Barrister Deji Adeyanju, had petitioned the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Prof. Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, over the non-payment one-year stipends to N-Power beneficiaries by the government.

The beneficiaries also noted that they registered for the N-Power programme and were deployed to their places of primary assignment for a period of 12 months, from October 2022 to September 2023.

Adeyanju told SaharaReporters on the phone that the government’s failure to pay the N-Power beneficiaries’ stipends amounts to a breach of their agreement.