Many cybercafes and business centers in Gashua town are making brisk business as hundreds of unemployed youths scramble to register for the Npower programme.
Kanem Trust reports that hundreds of youths turn out at business centres in the town to register for the scheme they see as a last hope of gaining employment.
Aliyu Abdullahi, a manager at Elly Cyber Business Centre told Kanem Trust that he made about N500, 000 in the first week of the scheme.
“I have about five persons in my business center as assistants and each one of them filled more than 200 forms at the cost of N500 naira each.
Due to the high number of the applicants most of the business centre owners have to take the application forms to their homes and do the work there in the night in order to reduce the workload.
Malam Abdulmumin, who manages Messy Cybercafe and Computer Business Centre, told our correspondent that three of his shop assistants helped him to fill over 400 forms at the beginning of the exercise.
He said most of the forms were filled at home in a bid to meet up the demand of the applicants who crowded his business premises.
“When you come here in the morning, you will see people waiting for us. So we took their forms and filled them at home. Truly, the money I got this time has surpassed the one I got in the previous NPower recruitment, because now people trust the exercise and believe you do not need to have a godfather to get enrolled,” he said.
Kanem Trust reports that Gashua has more than seven cybercafes and several business centres.
Many of the centres had no internet facility but had to quickly acquire the services to meet the demands of the applicants.
Another business centre operator, Amadu, said he was forced to join in when he saw the number of applicants who turned out to register.
“Considering the huge number of the interested applicants we had to have an internet connection to have my own share during this exercise and thank God in the first week I got hundreds of thousands of naira because my boys and I registered more than 500 applicants.
He said he hoped to develop a parcel of land he acquired with the proceeds he made from the business.
Some of the applicants told Kanem Trust that they spent days at cybercafes and business centres because of the number and erratic internet connection.
“I spent the whole day visiting the café. Whenever I got there they would say there was no network, I should come back later, but at last I succeeded,’’ Aisha Mohammed Sheriff, a diploma holder said.
However, Mohammed Mohammed Lawan, another applicant, said he could not afford to pay for cafe charges as well as joining the queue for the whole day. He rather used his Android phone to fill both for himself and his friends.
“I heard that the cafes are charging N500 naira per applicant. As I am jobless, where do I get this amount so I decided to use my android phone and filled the form and also that of my friends who contributed in buying data.”.
