The Beneficiaries of Social investment programme, (Npower) received the statement credited to the federal government and minister of humanitarian Affairs, Sadiyya Umar Faruq with a huge shock and a surprise, that her Ministry has paid the five months backlogs owed to over 14000 exited Npower Batch A and Batch B beneficiaries. This is nothing but a blatant lie and it’s shameful.
None of us has received any payment from her Ministry since February 2020. We are numbered over 14200 and we have different WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages and telegram, where we communicate with ourselves. None of us claimed to have received any payment from Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs. The statement credited to her that, “as at last count, her ministry has settled all backlogs owed to exited Npower beneficiaries”, is a white lie. We are using this medium to refute her baseless claims.None of us has received any payment from her ministry, as claimed.
According to the statement made available to Heritageecho.com by the Spokeperson, Unpaid Npower beneficiaries, Aremu Ridwan Olalekan, siad, For the records, in October 2020, the minister directed us to visit our respective states National Orientation Agency(NOA), for re-documentation and presentation of our Bank statements, when she claimed that, some of us worked at some ministries, agencies and departments, which, according to her, was the reason our accounts were flagged by GIFMIS platform. With no hesitancy, all of us across the 36 states and the FCT, visited our states NOA for re-documentation and presentation of our bank statement, as evidences that, we are legitimate beneficiaries and we were owned 5months(March2020-July2020) stipends.
On October 27th, 2020, the minister, hajia Saddiya Farouq, tweeted via her official handle that ” out of 500,000 combined beneficiaries from Batch A and B, only 14200 have 5months outstanding stipends arrears. All legitimate and those all the verified list will be paid before the end of the year”. Despite this tweet from her, she reneged on the promised in 2020 as she failed to pay us as promised.
The flagging of our bank accounts by GIFMIS payment platforms prevented us from registering for NEXIT package, which is an exit package meant for all exited Npower beneficiaries. The package is powered by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). On various occasions, her Senior Special Assistant on Media, Madam Nneka Ikem, tweeted that, “Npower beneficiaries that were owned backlogs won’t be able to register for Nexit until they are cleared”.
On 7th April 2021, she tweeted that, “8900 Npower batches A and B have been cleared for payment of their 5months arrears of their stipends. An sms has been sent to you to quickly login to the Nexit Portal and to join others for the next level of the empowerment”. The tweet ended.
Some of us, not all, got the sms without any payment and were able to login to the Nexit Portal for registration.
It’s pertinent to state that, we have exhausted all possible means to press home our demands and it totally unfair for a minister of the federal Republic of Nigeria, to feed the public with lies on the payment of our 5months stipends. We use this medium to call on President Buhari, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to come to our aid and direct the Minister to pay our backlogs. We worked for this. It’s our right. We don’t deserve this maltreatment, after working as beneficiaries for two years.
We haven’t received any payment for our 5months backlogs, from the Npower, under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Social development and disaster management, which Hajia Saddiya Farouq Umar controls. We demand for immediately payment of our backlogs.
