The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development Sadiya Umar Farouq announced this at a Media briefing in Abuja.

The Minister stated that the 550,000 short-listed applicants are being individually contacted through the e-mail addresses provided by them.

”By the 3rd week of May 2021, over 1.8 million Nigerians successfully updated their records and took the compulsory online test.

“Further screening was undertaken and a short-list of 550,000 applicants qualified for the final selection. 500,000 will be finally selected nationwide to serve as the first stream of the N-Power Batch C programme. This is the Batch C1. The second batch of another 500,000 will subsequently be made in line with Mr President’s directive to engage 1,000,000 beneficiaries under the Batch C,” the Minister said.

The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development launched the National Social Investment Management System (NASIMS) on the March 11, 2021 for the Batch C applicants who were requested to urgently update their personal information and subsequently take an online test through the NASIMS Portal.

Home-Grown school feeding programme

In a related development, the Minister also announced the resumption of the National Home-Grown School Feeding programme where a total of 9,196,823 pupils in classes 1 to 3 in public primary schools will receive one nutritious meal daily in all 54,619 schools nationwide.

The programme, according to the Minister is being expanded to accommodate an additional five million children in line with the directives of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“The outcome of this programme includes increase in school enrolment, improved nutrition for benefiting pupils, boosting of local economies and facilitating job creation through the activities of 103,028 cooks, 100,000 small holder farmers and numerous aggregators and commodity transporters engaged nationwide”. 

Minister Sadiya Umar Farouq also revealed plans to on-board the second Batch of beneficiaries under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) which is nearing completion and will be made public soon.

She also reiterated the Ministry’s commitment to the continued implementation of the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP), in line with Mr President’s policy to unfailingly lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years, through innovative Youth Empowerment and Gainful Employment.

“As part of the NSIP, the Rapid Response Register (RRR) has been put in place by the Ministry as a shock responsive intervention register specifically targeted at the Urban Informal workers impacted by the Covid 19 Pandemic. One million beneficiaries will receive monthly cash transfers of N5,000 for 6 months. A pilot commenced earlier this year with 3,115 beneficiaries in Lagos and Abuja. It will be up scaled nationwide and beneficiaries will start receiving their stipends soon,” Umar Farouq said.