“Padded” N-Power Shortlist: A Post-Mortem, By Jaafar Jaafar

Since the release of the shortlist of the 200,000 applicants of te N-Power programme, a number of people from the North have drawn my attention to the “adulteration” of the list of some northern states with what they call “strange names”.

N-Power is the present administration’s multi-component economic programme aimed at empowerment, the creation of employment opportunities and trained manpower in the areas of basic education, primary healthcare and agriculture. Although a salary of N23,000 or N30,000 may not be enough to sustain a worker in this current economic hardship, the programme is, by and large, a step in the right direction.

As I skimmed through the list, I noticed some non-native names in some Northern states where such names are almost impossible to be found among the natives. Scanning further into the list, my face suddenly wore a sheepish smile when I recalled how I was attacked, tagged anti-North and demonised for daring to criticise President Muhammadu Buhari’s lopsided federal appointments and sheer disregard for the federal character principle in favour of the North.

While sympathising with ‘my people’ for being somewhat shortchanged (at least this time), as an advocate of the federal character principle and conscientious Nigerian, I must say that the adulteration of the list was not particularly heartwarming.

Like the electoral college system in American politics, the federal character principle in Nigeria has its merits and demerits. I believe the framers of the Nigerian laws recognised our divisions as a nation and the educational disadvantages of the North and found a way of trying to make up for this in our constitution.

In recognition of our diversity, previous empowerment schemes, like Obasanjo’s NAPEP and Jonathan’s Sure-P had state coordinating offices, staff and heads in the 36 states and FCT before the take off of the programmes.

But the Federal Government, this time, was in a hurry to beat the deadline, make good its promises and avoid the severe censure its serial failures draw. Faced with the aforesaid challenges, the scheme was shabbily thought-out, while the coordinator of the scheme, Maryam Uwais was wrongly chosen, and the shortlist hastily improvised. Against a trove of the qualified economists Nigeria is endowed with, Mrs Uwais, a lawyer, was appointed to coordinate this complex economic programme simply because she was VP Osinbajo’s Law School mate and the chairperson of a foundation she established for her late father, Ambassador Isa Wali. Worse still, she is reporting to another lawyer, Professor Yemi Osinbajo.
But while some people berate the Northern youth for showing a lack of interest in the scheme, I tend to look at the issue from a different perspective. One cannot equate the number of graduates from the South with those from the North. Despite our advantage in population, yett for every graduate the North produces, there are at least five more produced by the South.

Now take a look at this grim reality: of the 69 private universities in Nigeria, only eight are in the North. Of the 40 private polytechnics in Nigeria, not more than 10 are in the North. Out of the 10, about seven of them are scattered through Benue, Kogi, Nasarawa and Abuja. While the first private polytechnic in Kano (Aminu Dabo Polytechnic) took off this year (2016), the first private polytechnic in Lagos (Grace Polytechnic, Surulere) was established in 1962.

So in a free-for-all automated application system like this, chances are that over 80 percent of the successful candidates will be Southerners.

The night before, I called Laolu Akande, the spokesman of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, under whose office the programme is being coordinated, to know the cause of this lopsidedness. Mr. Akande told me that there was no cause for alarm over the appearance of such names in the shortlist of the North.

According to him, the screening was based on the location where each applicant is residing.

“Go through the list,” he challenged me, “call any of the shortlisted candidate and ask where he is living. People should note that wherever your name appears, you will render your service to that particular area.”

Quite really, Akande gave me a cogent explanation as to why the northern list was a kind of orisirisi, while the southern list appeared purely like a okro soup.

In the light of this, the Buhari administration is to blame here for its failure to factor in our differences and the educational advantage of the South by establishing state coordinating offices before the take off of the programme.

Jaafar Jaafar, a public affairs analyst and media practitioner, writes from Abuja.

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