By Shuaibu Zubair Tatu, Birnin Kebbi
The beneficiaries of N-Power under the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) on Thursday appealed to the Federal Government to pay their stipends for March 2020 to assist them in cushioning the effects of the lockdown ordered to curb the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the country.
Rakiya Aminu, a primary school teacher, who made this appeal in an interview with Authority newspaper correspondent in Kebbi Kebbi, urged the Federal Government to pay the stipends of beneficiaries to enable them buy food at home.
She said ” it is shameful and extremely painful that at a time when governments in civilized countries are dolling out palliatives to citizens under lockdown, our government has held unto our March stipends without any explanation, what so ever.
” Those of us on Npower are posted to primary schools with more than a 100 pupils in a class and we carry out our duties diligently even under the most unfavourable conditions. Yet we are being unfairly treated because our stipends are paid halfway into the next month or sometimes even owed for two months ”, she said.
Aminu stated that the whole country is under total or partial lockdown and we remain unpaid. How do we survive without the stipends when we are not even targeted for any government intervention in the form of palliatives?
She said the federal government should as a matter of urgency pay us our stipends as we and our families are human beings and should not be subjected to the indignities of starvation.
Another N-power beneficiary , Haruma Yaqub also appealed to Federal Government to pay for their
N30,000 stipend to enable them cater for their families in this terrible condition.
He wondered why N-power beneficiaries who are poor and already known to the government are not being paid their dues and not given any form of palliative yet government claimed to have paid palliative to millions of unnamed and faceless people.
