The government of President Muhammadu Buhari is currently enmeshed in what may be described as the worst recruitment scandal exposed in recent times.
Investigation has revealed that so many agencies of government were granted official waivers to embark on secret recruitment seen as benefits for senior party men and high ranking government officials.
The recruitment process is being shrouded with all kind of tags in order to cover up its scandalous nature.
The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) confirmed the secret recruitment of personnel to the Nigerian Times claiming it has done no wrong since those engaged are Nigerians.
Reports from the agency’s training institute in Kano reveal that thousands of fresh recruits are already in training without any advertisement.
Service Public Relations Officer, Deputy Comptroller of Immigration Ekpedeme King who spoke with the press on Friday described the exercise as ‘replacement’ and not employment as being reported.
King claimed that the service applied and got waivers from the government and so did not have to follow the due process of recruitment.
“The most important thing is that those people engaged are Nigerians,” he said.
This is coming despite the embargo placed by the Buhari led administration on recruitment into the agency after it cancelled an earlier one conducted by the immediate past administration.
In March 2014 crowd control failure led to the death of over 20 applicants seeking employment with the Immigration Service nationwide with the former President Goodluck Jonathan promising to compensate families of the deceased by recruiting qualified relatives.
The Buhari administration cancelled the recruitment and dismissed the recruits who were already in training then. It claimed that the process was fraught with corruption.
For that botched recruitment, the former Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, is facing criminal allegations for which he was remanded in prison.
Moro is standing trial in a case instituted by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) on allegations of defrauding 676,675 applicants the sum of N676,675,000 being the summation of the N1000 paid by each applicant that participated in the recruitment exercise.
Also, former Comptroller General of the service, David Parradang, was sacked by the presidency after a letter from the Ministry of Interior accused him of recruiting 1,600 officers without recourse to due process.
NIS Boss – Martin Kure Abeshi
In the letter, dated August 21, 2015 from the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prisons Services Board, Paradang was accused of “deliberate disregard to the extant laws” guiding recruitment
On the current exercise, the NIS training school in Kano where Nigerians aged between 30 and 35 of age are undergoing regimental exercise, the number of candidates there is stretching the capacity of the training school’s hostels as some of the classrooms were converted to temporary hostels to solve the problem of accommodation.
A source at the immigration, revealed that the current exercise is shrouded in secrecy with some top officials of the service in the dark. He added that those currently in camp for training represented an amalgam of relatives of top politicians and members of the business elite in the country. He added that none of those whose family members died in the 2014 fiasco are among those currently undergoing training in Kano.
“The issue is a very delicate one. We have a situation where people are being recruited without due process being followed. They will tell you there is no recruitment going on and if you press hard they will you they are merely doing replacement but the truth of the matter is that without giving Nigerians equal opportunity, some people are being taken in through the back door. This clearly makes nonsense of the whole idea of transparency,” the source said.
One of the cadets currently in training in Kano revealed that his employment was facilitated by a Senator.
” I was one of those that applied for employment in 2014 and was disappointed by how everything turned out. Thankfully, this time, I got lucky as I was able to get a Senator, a friend of our family, who pressed buttons for me. We have been in camp since last week,” he said.
Volunteers not employees
Whilst the immigration service has passed off its recruitment exercise as replacement, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) insists what it is presently involved in is engagement of ‘volunteers’.
NSCDC Commandant- General Abdullahi Gana Muhammadu
Spokesperson of the NSCDC intimated the public that it will thereafter seek approval for their formal integration into the service.
“They are like a reserve force which may be engaged formally in the event of personnel shortfall,” Okey said.
He denied completely that any recruitment or staff ‘replacement’ has or is taking place.
However, a reliable source confirmed that there has been massive recruitment in the agency in the name of staff replacement. This development is already causing bad blood among senior Directors of the Ministry of Interior as some were not given opportunity to nominate candidates.
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), which recently suspended the secret acceptance of lists and Curriculum Vitae of nominees for recruitment from senior politicians of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) shielded the process in secrecy.
A staff of the agency confided that they stopped collecting fresh C.Vs last Friday. However, a visit to the agency’s head office in Wuse Zone 5 Abuja shows notices posted on the wall stating they are not recruiting and asking applicants who had heard about the secret recruitment to wait until they see advertisement in the newspapers.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), for it part, was also reported to have secretly recruited hundreds of staff in the same manner. A source in the agency also confided that NEMA concluded its own secret recruitment last week.
NEMA Boss – Muhammed Sani Sidi
When confronted, NEMA’s spokesperson, Sani Datti denied knowledge of the development.
Caught red handed in this gale of undercover recruitment, the Central Bank of Nigeria said it opted for a secret process of hiring new staff because the bank was doing “targeted recruitment”.
This was after a news website uncovered how children and relatives of some influential Nigerians, including a nephew of President Muhammadu Buhari, were dubiously and secretly hired by the CBN.
The CBN’s acting Director of Corporate Communications; Isaac Okorafor insisted the bank did nothing illegal or wrong in hiring without advertising.
CBN Governor – Godwin Emefiele
He said: “In the last two years, we have had cause to recruit specialists, and what the law says is that if we are going for that kind of recruitment we should apply for waiver, so that we can do targeted recruitment.”
He added that the bank obtained waiver from the Federal Character Commission.
With disdain for the lack of morality in the process he asked “Is there any qualified Nigerian who does not have the right to work in the CBN?”
Nigerians are however hopeful that someday soon, the three million jobs annually, which was part of the campaign promises of the ruling APC will get to those without influential Nigeria
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