The Ministry of Youth and Sports Development has spent the sum of N2 billion on youth training as part of the COVID-19 intervention programme, documents from the Federal Ministry of Finance have shown.
In the document made available by the Ministry of Finance in response to the Freedom of Information (FOI) request, the Ministry of youth says it will train youth to become digital professionals.
The ministry of youth claimed to have trained 1,600 youth to become digital professionals. It says the agenda is to position the youth for remote job opportunities, making them tap into global technology.
A senior official at the Ministry of Youth that spoke to MAWA Foundation and does not want to be mentioned, said there were no such pieces of training of that magnitude that he is aware of.
He described the corruption that goes on in the Ministry of Youth as monumental that must be addressed immediately.
“What is going on in the ministry of youth is a huge corruption, and the government is turning blind eyes pretending they are not aware,” the senior official told MAWA.
“Challenge the ministry of youth and the minister to make available list of youth that was strained with N2 billion, I can assure you there is none,” the official added.
Another official in the ministry who spoke to MAWA accused the Ministry of Youth of engaging in unimaginable corruption and wants the government and the anti-graft agencies to immediately move in and address the issue.
“You cannot run a country this way and expect it not to collapse, people just connive and take away huge sums of money and nobody is asking questions, this is a factor that has kept Nigeria on her keels,” the official said.