Browsing: N-Power

Making the call in Abuja on Thursday, a stalwart of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) party, Alhaji Gital Umar, commended the Federal Government for the unprecedented level of public enlightenment undertaken by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, to ensure a successful onboarding of the beneficiaries.

It was the late economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, in the book: “The Nature of Mass Poverty,” who warned that: “Poverty is man’s (and woman’s) most powerful and massive affliction. It is the progenitor of much further pain – from hunger and disease on to civil conflict and war itself.” In our case in Nigeria, beyond our self-inflicted ethnic and religious conflicts, poverty is also at the root of all the kidnappings, abductions and banditry.

The introduction of the N-Power programme was greeted with joy and applause, especially among Nigeria’s teeming and unemployed youthful population. As part of the NSIP, the N-power was critical to the realisation of the Buhari Administration’s vision of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty over 10 years.

The announcement was greeted by vitriol and anger on and off social media by the youthful, extremely vocal and so, not surprisingly, social media savvy beneficiaries who did not wish to exit the programme even though Batch A beneficiaries had, somehow, managed to stay for over 40 months, 16 months longer than the programmes advertised for 24 months.

Tony was to explain further. The convention was: nobody ever loved the editor of the New York Times. If he was ever loved, then he was not the task master extraordinaire; he was not the deadline maestro and he was likely to fail in his duty. According to him, all that the job called for was respect and if love came along, it was a bonus.