Kwara-based applicant of the N-Power Recruitment 2020 identified as Khadijat Alimi, has revealed that she lost ₦38,000, while her friend lost ₦140,000 to swindlers during registration.
Recall that On June 26, 2020, online enrolment for N-Power Batch C beneficiaries commenced at Exactly 11:45PM and within 48 hours, more than 1 million applications were received according to Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs Disaster Management and Social Development.
One week after the portal opened, three million applications were received. However, there have been complaints of difficulties in the registration process, spurious websites and links, as well as unsuspecting applicants being defrauded.
“The link was sent to me by someone and I shared it with some of my friends, not knowing that it was fake,” said Alimi.
“Many of us lost money as they used the Bank Verification Number (BVNs) we filled in the fake application to access our accounts. I lost ₦38,000 and my friend lost ₦140,000,” she lamented.
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In Cross River, applicants allegedly paid between ₦2,500 and ₦1,500 for registration.
This is despite Federal Government’s warning against bribes or fees during registration. It is said that the Cross River State Government is using the N-Power programme to facilitate the training of 7,000 indigenes and 1,000 non-indigenes.
This was revealed in a circular signed by Prince Michael Nku Abuo, the director-general of the State Migration Control Services. In the circular, titled, “Public Notice: Details of State Government Facilitation of the Federal Government’s N-Power Initiative For Interested Indigenes and Non-Indigenes of the State,” Abuo claimed to be the state facilitator.
Eighteen persons were appointed to coordinate the registration in their local governments and the non-indigenes respectively.
But Agnes Effiong, a 21-year-old graduate alleged, “I was asked to pay a facilitation fee of ₦2,000. Another applicant, Jonas Akpan, also said that at cyber cafe, applicants were made to buy airtime and pay ₦2,500.
Apart from the coordination at local government councils, some applicants alleged that in some centres, those who registered them turned out to be scammers.
According to them, the scammers tampered with their BVN, which made them lose different amounts of money in their banks accounts.
Since inception in 2016, N-Power has trained hundreds of beneficiaries in various vocational areas – farming, agro-processing, financial literacy, communication, digital skills amongst a host of others.
N-Agro, N-Teach, N-Health and N-Build, Tech and Creative are the four N-Power programmes, according to the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
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