Presidency denies promising to pay unemployed youth

Speaking to newsmen, the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, said what was stipulated in the budget was that N5,000 will be paid to 1 million extremely poor Nigerians and not unemployed graduates.

Punch reports that Akande said “The budget for 2016 which has been submitted to the National Assembly has made an allocation of half a trillion naira, the first time in the history of this country’s budget where you have that huge chunk of money allocated for social investment.

“In that N500bn which is half a trillion naira, close to about 20 per cent of the entire budget, there are six social safety net programmes.

“One of them is the Conditional Cash Transfer where government is going to pay N5,000 monthly to the vulnerable and extremely poor Nigerians. That promise stands.”

He also said “The President never promised to pay unemployed graduates N5,000; the President never made that promise and the government never made that claim that it will pay N5,000 to unemployed graduates.

“The programme for unemployed graduates is the direct creation of half a million teaching jobs so that they will be trained; 500, 000 unemployed graduates will be trained to teach and they will be deployed to teach, while they are looking for their career paths or jobs. That still stands.”

Adding that “In addition to that, there is also a scheme to train 370, 000 non-graduate youths for skill acquisition and vocational training. During the time of that training, they will also be paid."

You will recall that on November 4, 2015, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Barrister Solomon Dalong said the Payment of N5000 to unemployed Nigerians would start in 2016.

Also, the Acting Director General of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Olakunle Obayan on Monday, November 30, 2015, told ThisDay that plans were in progress to register unemployed Nigerians, so they can be part of the scheme.