Some beneficiaries of the Npower scheme went to the Public Service Institute in Kubwa, Abuja in order to stage a protest over the refusal of the management of the scheme to pay their outstanding allowances.
The protesters made demands for the payment of their outstanding stipends, which are supposed to be for three months and also spoke against the lack of payment of their feeding allowances by the scheme.
Each beneficiary of the Npower programme is supposed to be paid an amount of N42,000 as a feeding allowance while also receiving an amount of N10,000 as a stipend for the same period.
One of the protesters, Michael Bright, said in an interview that the beneficiaries have not been paid their feeding allowance for December, a situation which he said has made many of them hungry and sick in this period.
Bright went ahead to say that the beneficiaries were being treated as slaves, and it was looking like the government deliberately brought them to the Npower camp only to refuse the necessary items for survival.
Bright said that the beneficiaries had been enduring hunger but had finally reached their limits, which is what led to the protest which they hoped would spark urgent action.
It was discovered that activities at the Public Service Institute were disrupted on Monday as the Npower beneficiaries demonstrated to make their grievances known.
In spite of the assurances made by an official who promised that their allowances would be paid before the week runs out, the protesting beneficiaries decided to abandon all lecture rooms at the institute until the matter is finally resolved.
The camp at the Public Service Institute in Kubwa houses beneficiaries of Npower’s Batch C1 from states in the North-Central region of the country. The set occupying the camp presently resumed on November 3 and are expected to leave the camp on December 20.
It was however reported that the beneficiaries had not received any information on what would happen after they vacate the camp.
