Nigeria Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management & Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, has said the first batch of Npower beneficiaries will be exited by the end of the year.

According to her, they are long overdue since they started their programme since 2016.

Indeed, the programme was scheduled to run for just 2 years. However, the current first batch of beneficiaries have been in service for nearly three years already.

She said, “I don’t know why there is fear, we know that the government had this programme in place to support our teeming unemployed youths, especially the graduates and it is supposed to be a two years programme.

She continued, “We started with the first batch in 2016 and they were supposed to have exited in 2018 and we want to believe that most of them that are wise must have saved really from the stipend that they are being paid every month.”

She went on to say that she believes they must have learned some skills. She, furthermore, said that she doesn’t see any reason for panic since they already knew what they were signing up for when they joined the programme.

“Also, they must have learned some skills, so I don’t think we should have this panic that these people don’t know their fate or that they don’t know their future. From the onset, they knew that this is a programme will not be forever,” the minister continued.

She also talked of giving the beneficiaries a “futuristic” exit. In other words, not leave them to their fate after exiting them.

She said, “For us as a ministry, we are looking at all options as for the planned exit. We are not going to exit them and leave them to their fate.

We have options and we are exploring these options with critical stakeholders to see how we can have a futuristic exit for these people so that they can have something to fall back to and continue with their lives. We hope that before the end of this year, we should come up with a concrete exit plan for them,” the minister added.