Scores of beneficiaries of the Federal Government’s N-POWER scheme aimed at tackling unemployment on Tuesday protested to the Lagos State House of Assembly against the non-payment of their stipends for three consecutive months.

It would be recalled that they had in January protested to the Assembly demanding for the payment of their stipend, which made the House to summon the state coordinator of the scheme, Mrs. Shola Falana, and the state Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Mrs. Lola Akande, for explanation.

The protesters, chanting different solidarity songs, carried placards with various inscriptions, which include: Lagos State N-Power volunteers are tired of staying at home’; ‘Only Lagos State N-Power are excluded from the programme, attend to us’; ‘Release our stipends’; and ‘Enough of no information, no device, no deployment, no stipends.’

Leader of the protesters, Mr. Felix Ayorinde, said: “We are being cheated in Lagos. We do not know why the Federal Government has decided to exclude us in this state. Throughout December we were not verified. We have done verification after our first protest to this House in January but we have not been deployed and neither were we paid our stipends.

“We want the House to intercede on our behalf so that we can be posted and paid. Other applicants in other states have been deployed and are collecting their stipends since December. We are tired of staying at home, we are hungry.”

Addressing the protesters, Speaker of the House, Mr. Mudashiru Obasa, said the Assembly would not allow anyone to cheat successful N-Power applicants in the state, adding that the Assembly would further investigate causes of delay. Obasa was represented by Mr. Bisi Yusuf, Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts (Local).