The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has begun a process of fulfilling its promise to empower 10,000 youths with N50,000 monthly stipends each and skills.
The commission on Tuesday formally launched the Youth Internship Scheme portal to kickstart the programme.
Speaking at the unveiling of the portal, the Chairman, NDDC Governing Board, Chiedu Ebie, said the initiative would transform the lives of beneficiaries.
It was learned that the scheme, designed as a free online programme, sought to address the pressing issues of lack of education and skill among youths in the Niger Delta.
Ebie stressed that the programme was designed to provide a stipend during the internship period, enabling participants to learn skills.and become self-sufficient.
He said every applicant would register online to eliminate intermediaries adding that age limit of 45 years was set for it to allow for only legitimate beneficiaries.
He said the registration process was also designed to cater for people with special needs.
He said: “There is an age limit, we are not going to take pensioners and they will come and hide under the youth scheme. If you are over 45 years please, do not apply. I beg of you. Because you are not too far from retirement age.
“Leave it for the youths that will still have at least two or three decades of work life and active life. When you do that, you will be denying legitimate beneficiaries the opportunity to get on the programme.”
In his remarks, the Managing Director and CEO of the Commission, Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, warned would-be beneficiaries to conduct themselves properly or face expulsion.
He emphasized that quarterly reports would be used to assess participants’ behavior adding that any misconduct would lead to removal from the scheme.
He said: “We want the youths to take advantage of this. For those who are going to be successful in the selection, wherever you are being sent to, try and also be a good ambassador of the Niger Delta youths by making yourself of being of good conduct.
“This is because your conduct is the only guarantee that can sustain you in this scheme. You are being taken does not mean it is employment. Because we have a consultant who is the lead consultant and nine other consultants who are also going to take care of every state.
“These consultants are going to be writing quarterly reports and in these reports, if you are indicted not to be of good conduct, you would be taken out of the scheme. So you should understand that the guarantee of your being on the scheme is in your hands, in your conduct or else you have yourself to blame.
“Coming to today’s event is the official launch of the NDDC Internship Scheme where we are going to empower 10,000 youths in the Niger Delta, engaging them in various internships, ranging from Technology, automobile, craftsmanship, Community Service, Finance, Sports, Medical, Maritime Agriculture, and Arts”.
Ogbuku highlighted the transparency of the online process, saying it would ensure equal distribution of benefits among states, based on crude oil production quota.
He said that each state will have a flat rate of 500 participants before the production quota and distribution are considered.
“The selection process will be done based on the eventuality of states and quota of production. Because that has been the standard that NDDC uses in distributing its benefits.
“That is to say, it does not matter because the MD is from Bayelsa State, that does mean that Bayelsa will have more than Dalta State which has more in terms of crude oil production. But we will still use equality of states, and we tagged it at 500, that means every state will have 500 flat rate before we will to production quota and distribution.”
Ogbuku, however, assured participants that the database was robust, with six servers to prevent portal crashes.
He said: “I want to assure you that the database, we have tested are fully prepared for this scheme.
it, and it is very strong. It has six servers and they are strong that even with the pressure the portal is having right now, in anticipation of the pressure, the six servers will be a backup and the portal will not crash. Be rest assured that we
“We are going to ensure to engage other agencies of government that are relevant to such programs to partner with them to ensure that whatever our quota is, we must get.”