The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and SocialDevelopment, on Tuesday, announced that the registration of Batch C of itsN-Power programme has closed.
It said the registration closed on August 9, 2020, adding that a total of5,042,001 Nigerian youths applied as at the end of the exercise.
The government, through a tweet by the N-Power Programme, earlier stated thatit would enrol about 400,000 beneficiaries in the Batch C scheme.
The ministry said in a statement issued in Abuja by the humanitarianminister’s Special Assistant on Strategic Communication, Halima Oyelade, thatthe registration exercise for Batch C beneficiaries commenced on June 26, 2020.
It said the registration was initially scheduled to end on July 26, 2020,but the ministry extended the date by two weeks to avail those who were unableto apply to do so.
In the statement, the minister, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, reassured Nigerians thatdue diligence would be applied during the next stages of the selection toensure that only duly qualified applicants were enrolled.
She said the ministry would ensure that the applicants, as well as thegeneral public, were kept fully informed on the progress of the scheme.
Umar-Farouq added that the N-Power programme was aimed to provide Nigerianyouths with opportunities to gain skills for employability andentrepreneurship.
This, she said, would go a long way in assisting the country in itspost-COVID-19 economic recovery drive.
The minister said women and persons with disabilities would be prioritisedduring the selection.
Umar-Farouq said her ministry remained committed to the vision of lifting100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next 10 years, as the N-Powerscheme was one of the platforms that could assist in the realisation of this
vision.