Npower: Senate steps in as Npower beneficiaries protest

The senate President, Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan has intervened on behalf of Federal government a peaceful protest staged by Npower beneficiaries.

Onyxnews Nigeria reports that the Npower beneficiaries set a peaceful protest on Thursday 16th July over the news of disengagement by the Honourable Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farooq in charge of Npower without “enhancement scheme” earlier promised.

Beneficiaries embarked on the protest from eagle square to National Assembly in Abuja holding different placards with various inscriptions like, “We Cannot Go Back To Streets To Start All Over”, ” We Have Families Who Depend On The N30,000 Monthly Stipend; How Do We Survive Now?”, “Nigerian Graduates Are The Future Of Nigeria. Treat Them Better”, ” If You Can Pay Bokoharam, Militants N65,000 Monthly since 2012 uninterrupted, Why Can You Pay Law Abiding Nigerians N30,000 Monthly? “, ” You Promised Us Enhancement Scheme Before 2019 Election, Why Do You Want To Do The Opposite “, ” Don’t Force Us To Cause Unrest” “Give Us Permanent Jobs”, ” Your Children Are In CBN, FIRS, & Other Juicy Offices But See Us Battling With Npower N30, 000?” “Nigeria Has More Than Enough Money To Pay Us”, among others.

Reacting to the protesters, Senate President Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan, negotiated a meeting with them on Thursday 23rd July 2020.

The senate President, Lawan commended the protesters for obeying the “social distance” order even with their anger. He explained that necessary steps would be taken so as to avoid throwing them back to the streets.

On the spokeperson of the protesters Mallam Muhammed’s part, he appreciated the senate leader, for giving them attention, dding that though it is not a speech making day but all they are asking for is permanent jobs as promised by the federal government from the start.

He stressed that government plot to disengage them without “enhancement scheme ” is a call for social evils such as stealing, kidnapping, and of course high rate of unemployment.

Muhammad told Senate President that the news going viral that batches A and B Npower beneficiaries have to be disengaged for batch C to come in is a plot by Enemies of Buhari’s government to truncate his most adored “legacy” of addressing unemployment saying that the coming of batch C has nothing to do with federal government’ s earlier promised of permanency as he added that the programme can even be expanded to have upto batch A to Z.