Ordinary Nigerians are finding it difficult to get jobs into
federal agencies because top bureaucrats, public officials and
lawmakers are hijacking the opportunities, Daily Trust reports.
Vacancies
in federal ministries, departments and agencies, which are seldom
publicly advertised, end up being filled up by candidates handpicked by
ministers, senior civil servants, traditional and religious leaders, and
National Assembly members, according to Daily Trust investigations
covering more than one year.
In the last three years, very few
federal agencies advertised job opportunities, while others filled them
up secretly in the name of “replacement.”
Secret recruitments
continue despite pronouncements by various agencies such as the National
Assembly and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related
offences Commission (ICPC) to investigate them.
Daily Trust
reports that the Federal Character Commission (FCC), an executive body
established to ensure fairness and equity in the distribution of public
posts and socio-economic infrastructures among the various federating
units of Nigeria, has been accused of being complicit.
An insider
told Daily Trust that officials of the character commission “allow
heads of the agencies to secretly recruit once job slots are allocated
to them. Through this, they claim the federal character is achieved
since the FCC members are from the six geopolitical zones.”
Some
of the federal agencies at the forefront of this illegal hiring include
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Deposit Insurance
Corporation (NDIC) and Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate
(PTAD).
Insiders told Daily Trust that the job racketeering is being done by the agencies in conjunction with National Assembly members.
“The
National Assembly members are given huge slots. The officials in the
Presidency are also given. Officials of the supervising ministries such
as the minister, permanent secretary, some directors are all given
slots,” the source said.
The source said sometimes when an agency
was planning to recruit 200 people, it would end up hiring 1000 or even
more because the lawmakers must be given their slots.
FCC officials told this reporter that the agencies shy away from advertising vacancies to avoid stampede.
183 agencies in illegal hiring
A
report by the Federal Ministry of Finance revealed that 183 out of 185
federal agencies had recruited 13,780 staff in two years.
Out of
this number, 6,917 were recruited without any formal approval; 2,314
were employed by seven universities with governing council approval;
while 4,549 had correctly obtained approval from the Office of the Head
of Service and FCC.
The ministry’s review revealed that out of the
185 agencies, only the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigerian Army sought
approval for their recruitment.
Jobs for the influential
The
most recent case of hijacking opportunities meant for Nigerians is that
of a scholarship to study an undergraduate degree course in railway
engineering in China extended by a Chinese firm, China Civil Engineering
Construction Corporation Ltd (CCECC).
When young Nigerians
converged at the CCECC office in Abuja for the interview, only
applicants whose names appeared on a “special list” provided by 10
serving ministers, a northern governor and a presidency official were
allowed for the interview.
In March 2016, Daily Trust reported how the CBN recruited 909 staff in two years without advertising the vacancies.
Investigations
showed that some of the basic requirements for employment were not
followed in the recruitment. For instance, the various positions to be
filled by candidates were not advertised, and the figures also suggested
that the exercise was lopsided in favour of certain sections of the
country contrary to the provisions of the federal character.
Details
of the recruitment carried out between June 2014 and February 2015
showed that out of the 909 staff engaged, 213 of them are from the
South-South region, CBN governor’s geopolitical zone.
The
recruitment list contained names of sons and daughters as well as family
members of senior Presidency officials, ministers, key ruling party
chieftains, lawmakers, among others. The FCC said it would investigate
the scandal, but has yet to do so.
The apex bank conducted its
secret recruitment even though in September 2015, it issued a statement
signed by the former director, Corporate Communications, Ibrahim Mu’azu
denying any general recruitment in the bank.
Mu’azu said CBN would not embark on general recruitment exercise without due process.
“Whenever
the Bank is ready to do this it will be duly publicized through its
website, and other media platforms available to it, without a fee,” the
statement added.
But Daily Trust learnt that the last time the
bank publicly recruited workers was in 2013 after it announced and
advertised the exercise. An inside source said the bank recruited almost
every month, since June 2014.
Security agencies are not exempted
from this scandal. In May 2017, Senate committee chairman on federal
character and inter-governmental affairs, Tijjani Kaura, said an
investigation is ongoing into the alleged lopsided recruitment into
Department of State Services (DSS).
A report alleged that out the
479 cadets commissioned on March 5 by DSS, a large number of them were
from the north, with Katsina State where the DSS chief hails from having
51 slots, more than the entire slots of the southeast. But the
presidency defended the recruitment saying the matter was taken in
isolation of the context it was done.
“It is important to
emphasise that it is in the interest of peace, stability and the general
well-being of the nation that all component units are fairly
represented in organisations such as this. Where this comes short,
efforts must be made to correct such lopsidedness as the DSS did between
2014 and 2016,” the presidency said in a statement.
The FIRS,
during the first quarter of 2016, recruited five directors secretly
along with over 200 other staff. The recruitment exercise was not
advertised to enable other eligible Nigerians to apply.
The
National Population Commission (NPC), for instance, was granted a waiver
to replace 86 exited staff but ended of hiring 184, according to Daily
Trust investigation in September 2016.
The hiring was later suspended because it was done secretly in violation of the requirements of federal chance.
An inside source, however, said the disagreement on sharing formula of the jobs slots was responsible for its suspension.
The
political heads of the commission disagreed over the number of slots
issued to each commissioner and that may have led to the suspension of
the exercise, the source said.
Daily Trust reported how the
Minister of Communication Adebayo Shittu revoked the recruitment of 245
graduates as senior staff of the Nigeria Information Technology
Development Agency (NITDA) hired in 2015.
One of the successful
applicants told Daily Trust that the minister “rejected the list because
his state was not properly represented on the list of successful
applicants. He has brought additional names that he wants to be added to
the list. That is the cause of the delay in posting the applicants.”
Why we grant waivers - FCC
The
character commission does not grant waivers to organisations to
circumvent its circular on a procedure for recruitment which stipulates
that organisations who intend to employ must advertise in two national
dailies, its spokesperson, Idriss Abdullahi, said.
He said an
exception was when the number to recruit is minimal such as one to 20
new recruits, the commission grants waivers to MDAs to cut cost and save
time.
“Where a waiver is granted it may be because of the number
and in very rare situations the need to fill the vacancies to meet up
with an urgent policy demand,” he said.
He said the FCC is
mindful of the stampede that happened at the immigration recruitment
some years ago and would not want an agency receiving thousands of
applications just for a few job openings.
Ordinary Nigerians protest
The
secret recruitment is not restricted to “lucrative agencies” as even
not-so lucrative jobs are still hijacked by influential Nigerians.
During the last recruitment of policemen nationwide, 67 persons on the
police candidates list from Katsina State were replaced with some names
provided by some “highly placed individuals”.
Daily Trust learnt
that about 238 persons were shortlisted for medicals in Kano and upon
return 67 names were allegedly removed and replaced with others who
didn’t attend the medical screening.
An applicant, Aisha
Muhammad, narrated her experience with the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk
Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) 2016/2017 recruitment.
The
applicant who holds a master’s degree in agric economics said after her
application, she wrote an aptitude test in Abuja, first level interview
in Lagos, and second level interview in Abuja.
“The irony is
some applicants got their appointment letters after the second level
interview. Meanwhile the bulk of us never got a response,” she said.
She
said after about a year, she received a call from someone saying she
was offered a one-year contract job by an outsourced company engaged by
NIRSAL. “It was terrible. It was clear that you have to know someone to
get hired,” she lamented.
Another applicant, Nana Yunusa, an
accountant that applied for NIRSAL job, said “This really demoralized
me. This is a job I had applied for over 10 months; which I had
undergone series of scrutiny from the employment firm (Nextzone) and the
agency itself (NIRSAL) through tests and interviews for a position that
was specifically stated- supervisor, but here I was being offered a
contract engagement through an outsourcing consultancy firm for a
position way below what I am qualified for. Considering the terms of
engagement, I declined the offer.
“I am talking to you as a
complaint because I feel I have been conned into being offered a job I
didn’t apply for when others with strong connections were able to get
in. If they hadn’t contacted me at all, I would have had the peace of
mind, owing probably to my inability to meet up to standards, but not to
be insulted with a term of engagement that I didn’t apply for,” she
said.
For Abba Muhammad, a graduate of engineering with a second
class upper division, he applied as a graduate assistant in a federal
university in one of the northwestern states.
“I passed all the
processes: aptitude test, interviews. But it was evident that I couldn’t
be hired despite my performance because I don’t know anybody
influential,” he said.
He said he experienced the same thing when
he applied to another university and polytechnic. “It was clear that it
is not about merit because I passed all the processes to reach the top.
But couldn’t secure the job because I don’t know a lawmaker or any
first-class traditional ruler to speak for me,” he said.
Muhammad,
who is now a master’s student, said he has left everything to God,
while he’s pursuing his second degree in engineering.
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