The Nigerian government has just announced the kickstart of its social investment programme called N-Power.
With a website all set-up to take applications from Nigerians, npower.gov.ng will be employing 500,000 people in three key areas.
N-Power teacher Corps is aimed at training teachers, health assistants, farmers and community educationists. They will get the needed training that they can then apply to either create jobs for themselves or seek employment. N-Power Knowledge programmes is targeted at creative and innovative youths. It will avail young people to acquire skills in creative related disciplines such as graphic design, script writing and post-production skills. Participants under the N-Power knowledge can also choose to learn software development and hardware skills.
The last part of the scheme is N-Power Build. This directed at training builders for construction and housing sectors. Participants will get skills that will allow them to be relevant to construction firms, automotive, welding, oil and gas sector.
The portal will be opened on Saturday 11th of June, 2016.
Unemployment is a big problem in Nigeria. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, at least 30% of Nigerians are unemployed while close to 50% others are under-employed. The N-Power programme might just be scratching the problem on the surface. In early March, Nigeria Police planned to employ 10,000 people ended up getting over 700,000 people applying for the exercise.
However, if the government can sustain it and create more initiatives, Nigeria’s unemployment problem can be curtailed.
