By Lanre Adesanya
Members of Nigerian Volunteer Corps N-power stormed Lagos State House of Assembly demanding their deployment into various ministries and the payment of salary from the Federal Government.
The aggrieved protesters displayed different placards with inscriptions; “N-power Lagos release our stipend”, “Lagos State Volunteers are tired of staying at home”, “only Lagos State N-power are excluded from the programme, please attend to us” among others.
According to one of the protesters, Mr. Felix Ayorinde, demanded the intervention of Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa, the speaker and Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, the Governor over the delay in their deployment and payment of their salaries in arrears.
He further appealed to Mr. Ambode to emulate other Governors that gives additional stipend to the N-power participant apart from the salary being paid by the Federal Government.
Hon. Gbolahan Yishawu, who represented the Speaker, expressed the readiness of the leadership of the House to address their problem. He subsequently called the focal person for N-power who works with the Ministry for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation WAPA to address them on what the Ministry is working on concerning their payment and deployment.
Hon. Bisi Yusuff appealed to the Federal Government to pay Lagos N-power participant promptly as well as the arrears due to them.
However, the Lagos State focal person for N-power, Mrs. Olusola Falana, stated that the programme started late due to some technical problem which was made known to the beneficiaries through different media platform though the verification exercise has been recently concluded.
“We don’t want to do any shoddy work; we are currently working on the deployment process because we want you to be deployed to relevant areas of your discipline. Your verification list has been forwarded to Abuja for further actions.” She explained.
Mrs. Falana however assured them that their salaries would be paid soon.