Claim: FG is paying ₦50,000 grant to Nigerian Youth
A viral WhatsApp message claims that President Bola Tinubu has approved the payment of ₦50,000 Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme for Nigerian youth, and that the Batch B portal is open. The post contains a registration link for Nigerians to register: https://lnkshk.com/fg-50k-cash-grants, with the title FG ₦50,000 CASH TRANSFER(Batch B) PORTAL IS OPEN
Due to the virality of the post and suspicion surrounding it, we decided to factcheck this claim.
Verification
We verified the URL provided in the claim using website analytical tools such as Spyonweb and Whois. We found that the portal was created using namecheap in Pennsylvania on August 9, 2023.
Analysis of the portal shows that the URL: https://fg-50k-lastphase.ibomair.online/ does not represent any formal domain name. One could even see Ibom Air (an airline) as part of the URL characters.
We supplied non-existing information on the portal and it took us to another fake page to supply account details.
The logos of the Bank of Industry and Federal Government placed on the page are meant to trick Nigerians to believe that the website is genuine.
We supplied a non-existing account number to the portal and chose a random bank.
The message received shows that the account number supplied has qualified among those to be credited but the message must be shared on 5 WhatsApp groupsor 15 individuals before the fund can be received.
This is why the post has been shared multiple times on WhatsApp by those who are deceived by the claim that they will receive ₦50,000 from the Federal Government.
Analysis of the current administration programmes showed that the Federal Government in December 2023, unveiled the Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme (PCGS), as part of the Presidential Palliatives Programme aimed at supporting nano businesses.
The programme is targeted at 70% women and youth, 10% people with disabilities, and 5% senior citizens, while the remaining 15% is distributed to other demographics.
It was reported that the Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, Doris Uzoka-Anite, announced that each qualifying recipient would receive a ₦50,000 grant, which will be directly deposited into their bank accounts, with the goal of reaching one million small businesses across the 774 LGAs and six council areas in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).”
The government portal for the nano business grant application can be found here: https://www.fedgrantandloan.gov.ng/. Domain name, with .gov.ng as pointers to the government of Nigeria.
Verdict: False.
The claim that the Federal Government ₦50,000 Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme portal is open to youth is false.
Such grant only exists for nano business owners.
The website provided is just another portal created by purveyors of fake news either to draw traffic to a website to phish information from unsuspecting Nigerians.
