Assessment of the effectiveness of N-power programme on beneficiaries in Igabi local government area of Kaduna State, Nigeria

N-power is a youth empowerment scheme implemented by the Federal Government of Nigeria to address the challenges of unemployment and to alleviate poverty among youths. The study was conducted to assess the effectiveness and the challenges of N-Power programme on the beneficiaries. Two stage sampling technique was used. Four districts were selected purposively at the first stage. At the second stage, 80 n-Power beneficiaries were selected randomly at 20 per district. Data was collected with questionnaire and interview and presented with percentages, mean and frequency distribution while Chi-square was used to analysed the data. The results showed that majority of the N-Power beneficiaries are male (58.75%), age between 27-35 years (52.50%), married (52.50%) with the household size of 2 to 5 members (65.00%) and are educated with tertiary education (67.50%). The Chi-square result showed that X2 statistics (30) was greater than X2 critical (16.64) at 0.01 percent probability level, indicating that the N-Power programme was effective in improving the living conditions of the beneficiaries. N-teach, N-tech, and N-agro are the N-Power scheme available to the beneficiaries. The challenges of N-Power programme to the beneficiaries are job insecurity, delay in payments of allowance, poor monitoring, insufficient information about the programme, distance to working places and bribery and corruption. The study recommended proper monitoring of the programme, adequate information about the programme to the public and prompt payment of the monthly stipends to the beneficiaries.