Impact of N-Power Programme on Youth Empowerment in Gombe State

Empowering young people means creating and supporting the enabling conditions under which young people act on their own rather than rely on others. The study examined the impact of Nigeria’s N-Power program on youth empowerment in Gombe state from 2016 to 2024. The population of 5,507 was drawn from the 2016 beneficiaries of N-Power (Teach) from Kaltungo, Akko and Gombe local government areas of Gombe state. To achieve the research objective, a sample size of 372 was drawn using Taro Yamane’s (1964) formula. The cluster sampling technique was adopted, whereby one local government was selected from each of the senatorial districts of the state. Respondents from each local government were drawn using a simple random sampling technique. Both qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis were employed. The study revealed that there was an increase in the monthly income, access to basic needs of shelter, as well as access to healthcare facilities by N-power beneficiaries and that some beneficiaries have utilised the programme to acquire entrepreneurial skills, which grants them financial freedom. Therefore, it is recommended that, government should provide interest free loans to interested volunteers to start up their small or medium scale enterprises; the federal government should ramp up pressures on state governments to absorb some of the volunteers in their civil service, effect an upward review of monthly stipend to beneficiaries; and the programme should be extended beyond the current two-years period to eight years.