 Now the federal government says the restructuring and transformation of the empire will burst an expanded program to reach beneficiaries aged between 18 and 40. Given a further glimpse into what a restructured empire would look like the national program manager disclosed that it will accommodate some new programs in education, health, walks, agriculture, technology, fashion, entertainment and other relevant areas of skill acquisition and employability. He asked that to earn the confidence of Nigerians in the expanded program, transparency and accountability will be the benchmark. He said it should no longer be business as usual. Joining me right now to speak further on the essence of the program and the recent development is a public affairs analyst, Mohamed Abdulai. Good morning to you, Mohamed. Thanks for joining us on Business Insights. Good morning Nigerians, always my pleasure. All right, let's start this way. It has been about almost seven years or there about since the introduction of the empire project. Looking at what it was established to achieve, would you say it has or is still relevant? Yes, thank you very much. I would say it's still very much relevant. Remember the last administration led by the former president Mohamed Ugehari, who had gone into office, who had the challenge of several millions of Nigerians being unemployed, particularly the youth. And one of the measures he took as the leader then was to find a means, you know, to absorb this teaming youth into employability. I mean scheme like the empire was created. If you remember, the empire provided the teachers to school. There was N, power, agriculture, and so on and so forth. Mohamed, are you still there? A lot of opportunities, even though most people argued, I mean critics argued, that the condition of service was a big pull in terms of pay and so on and so forth. And in fact, some of the major challenges that spiraled into this current administration is the fact that even people who worked for several months, probably three, four, five months, were not paid as well. But in answering your question correctly, I would say it really served the purpose because it reduced to a larger extent the number of unemployed Nigerians, particularly the youth. So I think it's still very much relevant and it's something that I feel the government, this current administration should continue. All right, now in recent times, just over the weekend, there was this talk about corruption in the program and now there is a call for investigation. How does that hit you? How does that work, sorry? How do you react to this recent development for call for investigation and alleged corruption in the program? Yes, corruption has been the pain of our country, I mean the pain of our society in every facet. So it's not surprising really that the empower scheme is also what we do with corruption. I think in my own opinion, the challenges we face as a nation is the fact that there are programs out there, there are laws out there, there are policies out there, but they're not properly supervised. And to some extent apologies, even people or agencies who are actually supposed to supervise some of these schemes are compromised. So that is the major challenge. So yes, I'm not really shocked. I'm not really surprised that the empower scheme is we do with corruption. What I'm glad about is the fact that this current administration is looking at ways of identifying the loopholes and the challenges so that I'm continuing what was just handed over to them who climb and sinker. It seeks to identify, review, and then see where the corruption cases are. If there need be for, you know, prosecutions of those people who carry out the corruption charges, it is important. And then if there's also the need to overhaul, I mean the process of whether application, disbursement of funds, and also getting feedback from the society, I mean those people who are engaged, it's also important. So it's important that this current administration check because if I'm correct, billions of marijuana are being pumped into the empower scheme. So in that respect, it needed all the scrutiny that it deserves from relevant agencies, particularly the government, and even individuals and corporate organizations who see something should be able to tell government this is the right thing to do. So it's important that this current government review the entire process, like I said, application for the empower process, the disbursement, in fact that is the major thing, the disbursement of funds because some of the challenges I again, and what I read is the fact that, you know, there are so many ghost applications, people are just being paid for not doing, for doing nothing. Yes, I was hoping to ask that you comment on that since you've mentioned it right now. The government is saying that it discovered instances of beneficiaries whose participation had lapsed since last year but have remained on and they continue to expect them getting the disbursement. You talked about compromises, you also talked about general overhaul, you know, how do we stem all of these occurrences because is it a thing of the application or the thing about that those in charge being compromised or just how exactly do we stem that particular tide of people getting through it even after the time has actually or have actually elapsed? I think in my own opinion everything has to be automated. In many instances in our country we still deal with paperwork in this 21st century is very sad. Everything has to be automated and then, I mean, gradually, sorry, now we see the importance of the NIN, I mean the national identification number in Nigeria is very important. In fact, most of the things that I do now that requires the NIN, clearly I impute my NIN number, all my details pop up. So I think the government also should find a way of, you know, inculcating these in all of the things that the government does, particularly that has to do with money and other policies. So if you do this, you'll be able to checkmate to a larger extent, you know, a lot of these corruption cases and fraudulent activities that goes on. Because like I said earlier, we still, you know, deal with a lot of paperwork, a lot of direct transfers which is absurd. You know, for instance, I see no reason why, for instance, even to empower, payment is done by those direct transfers. Yes, you just list names of banks or bank numbers and then payment is done, who fly and sink, is wrong. You know, each payment is supposed to be tied to a particular NIN so that we know who is getting who and where is such money going. You know, it's important that all these reviews are done and not just ordinary paperwork. Here and there like what we are used to, we need to automate all of our activities in this country if we are to move forward and then stem corruption. All right, let's look about, look at some of the changes that have been proposed that this scheme was created for the unemployed graduates and non-graduates within the ages of 18 and 35. Now there is some sort of planned expansion in the age limit I hear that it is being expanded to about 40 years. What exactly do you think about this development? It's a good initiative because there are quite a number of people within the age bracket as well that are unemployed or that are undi-employed. So I think it's a very good initiative that the scheme has been expanded to age 40. For someone like me, I don't really believe age is a barrier to doing things. In fact, two days ago, there was a viral post on social media allow me, if you may allow me to digress a bit, of a 70-year-old man, not enough from Yobes State, that has been inventing things. This 70-year-old man has never been to a former school or has been in an inventor. So I don't think age is a barrier for anything. So I think it's a good initiative by the government to expand it to the four years old age bracket. Like I said, there are many people within that age bracket that are unemployed or undi-employed. So it also creates opportunity for them to access the empires, the largesse of the empires. So it's a good one by the government, in my opinion. The program was built to prepare young Nigerians for a modern, globalized economy by helping to equip youth with skills and certifications for emerging global markets. Would you say that this criterion has been met? Because you talked about money has been handed out through direct transfers. Have there been any sort of monitoring to ensure that these monies are actually geared towards what they have been dispossessed for in the first instance? Yes, there has been. But again, there has been discrepancies. That's why I think we are discussing what we are discussing. That's why the current administration is talking about reviewing the process. I mean reviewing the entire program itself. I think it's not just only about renaming because probably the government might want to rename. I've seen something like that somewhere. But it's not just about renaming. I think it's all about reviewing the entire process that we discussed earlier. So yes, it's a good initiative if it is properly deployed and it is properly, you know, the process are quite straightforward. And then another thing that we don't do is the fact that we don't monitor. We don't monitor. We don't want to get a kind of feedback on what we do. It's important that government at all levels, you don't just deploy phones and then give out phones without understanding whether these phones are actually being effective and being deployed appropriately. So I think it's important to answer your question correctly. Yes, we can say 100% that the program has failed in the past seven or six years. No, but I think what needed to be. All right. Okay. Would you say there is actually confidence? No, it's the fact that we needed to channel all of our energy in making sure. Hello, can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. I think the government needed to channel all energies in ensuring that there is proper monitoring and less proper accountability as regards the entire process of the program. All right. Let me just quote what the program manager said when he was giving a glimpse into what the restricted empire would look like. He said that it would actually accommodate some new programs, including education, health, works, agriculture, technology, fashion, entertainment, and other relevant areas of skill acquisition and employability. I think it is a good thing because technology has been mentioned because just yesterday I attended a program where a young Nigerian from the diaspora and, of course, Chinese were actually training young people on how to produce or to design chips that are microconductors or semiconductors rather. So how far do you really think this would go? This new inclusion as far as making other aspects of the economy like education, health, works, agriculture, and technology, how far would all of these go? Yes, I think it's a good one because I know from the beginning the empower program was just limited to agriculture and basically teaching. Most of the people employed were just sent to schools to teach kids. So it's good that it's going and that's what we want. As a government, it's good that probably they are listening and then they are trying to expand the program to other sectors. Education is very key, health is very key. And then now what is so important in Nigeria is technology. If you look at the landscape in Africa, Nigeria is actually leading in so many fronts in terms of technology. So it's good because this is one area that perhaps do not really need too many or too much of from education even. You can be in your house. In fact, I am in Kaduna at the moment interacting with you. I know in Lagos and so on and so forth and people all over the world are listening and watching. So that's what technology does. And this is one important aspect that Nigerians are so good at, whether in secondary schools, the universities and so on. And people who are not even in formal education. So it's important that this empower program has been expanded to accommodate people from all walks of life, particularly like I mentioned, technology area is very, very important. It's one thing that we need to do and do well in Nigeria because a lot of things, like I keep saying to everyone, we do things still, I used the phrase 1860 years. So things that are still so much a cake. So with technology, we can actually go out and get out of this doldrum. And then we have a better society. So it's very commendable for government to think towards this way. And I'm sure Nigerians will take advantage of the opportunity to do well. All right, brilliantly said. We must say a very big thank you to you, Mohamed Abdelai for all of the imputes and the insight that you have brought on this empower program. We do appreciate that. Thanks for your time. Mohamed Abdelai is a public affairs commentator and analyst. So that's the size of the show for today. I am just in a business insight returns to your screen. Same time next time. Bye for now.