The Federal Government has spent N1.4 billion on the purchase of training kits and work tools for its technical arm of the job creation programme, the N-Build skills acquisition scheme.

Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation and Youth Employment, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.

According to him, the N-Power Build scheme is one of the two components of the non-graduate programme of the N-power volunteer job-creation scheme which also has N-Power knowledge.

He said the scheme is set to begin in no fewer than 250 centres in the 36 states and FCT from Feb. 12 to Feb. 20, with the registration of successful volunteers while orientation would hold for beneficiaries from Feb. 26 to Feb. 28.

Imoukhuede added that beneficiaries would start training on March 1, for three months, and be deployed to places of work/apprenticeship afterwards for nine months after which successful volunteers would receive tools to become self-employed.

The Presidential Aide noted that it was the intention of the federal government to train no fewer than 75,000 youths on various skills to prepare them for the industrial development of the country.

He, however, stated that the first batch of trainee volunteers would comprise 20,000 youths spread across the states of the federation and the FCT with other batches expected to follow in due course.

He said that beneficiaries were selected from the 2016 non-graduate applications when also 200,000 graduate volunteers were selected and deployed in the on-going N-agro, N-teach and N-health programmes nationwide.

According to him, the Buhari administration’s job creation scheme has recently pre-qualified additional 300,000 young graduates to bring to 500,000 the number of graduates for the N-Power scheme.

He explained that the graduate volunteers were being paid N30,000 monthly for the two-year cycle of the programme.

He noted that the non-graduate counterparts would receive N10,000 monthly stipends for 12 months in addition to skills kits at the end of their training and apprenticeship.

Imoukhuede said N-Build has seven components: automobile; carpentry and joinery; electrical installation; masonry; painting and decoration; plumbing and pipe fitting; as well as welding and fabrication.

He said that at the end of the training and apprenticeship, the country would expect to have a crop of well-trained skilled workers to handle all forms of building works.

“Here in Nigeria, we are building a skilled workforce for our needs,” the presidential aide remarked. (NAN)

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