Some of the recruited graduate teachers in the Federal Government’s National Social Investment programme who have not been paid their December stipends have expressed fears that they may not be paid afterall.
Speaking to The Tide midweek, at the Elekahia Community Town Hall, Rebisi, Port Harcourt during a verification exercise, some of the affected recruits stated that their fears were borne out of the fact that some of them have been paid their December stipend of N30,000 each.
When contacted, the state focal person on social investment programme, Sir Allwell Ihunda, stated that the recruits would be paid their stipends.
He explained that the inability of the federal government to pay them alongside their colleagues was related to unresolved issues in documentation, which he said was the essence of the day’s verification exercise.
“Some of them could not update their bank details or did not give the information that was required to enable them get their payments,” he said.
He continued that, “the other batch that are not likely to receive December stipend are those that we cleared and submitted their list on the 14th of January 2017.”
The National Investment Programme, popularly called N-Power Programme was set up by the federal government with an intention of empowering 500,000 unemployed graduates with a stipend of N30,000 in two years.
The first payment was made in December 2016.
Of the first batch of 200,000 recruits based on residence, Rivers State has the highest number of 13,165.
Explaining the details of N-Power Progrmame, the Rivers State Director of National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mr. Oliver Wolugbom said the programme was executed by NOA in conjunction with National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the programme’s focal person in each state.
According to him, the programme cut across N-Teach (teachers), N-Agro (Agriculture) N-Health and N-Community.
The Tide gathered that out of the first 10,000 of the 13,165 recruits that were cleared, about 8,000 are teachers.

Sogbeba Dokubo