by crossriverwatch admin
Senate Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba (PDP, Cross River Central) on Wednesday said several of his constituents have approached him to request for as much as five hundred thousand Naira to pay employment racketeers in federal Ministries, Agencies and Departments MDAs.
Senator Egba made this revelation in a session where the Senate mandated its committee to investigate all the recruitment exercises conducted by Federal MDAs in the last two years, with a view to punishing employment racketeers in the country.
In his account, the Senator said “For me, it is not a mere hearsay because I was directly approached severally by my constituents for N500,000 for job offer in government agencies, but I declined because I couldn’t imagine something like that happening in our country.
“The recruitment exercise has gone that bad in this country. This kind of situation, if not checked, would cause dynastic poverty as only the children of the rich would be getting jobs, while the children of the poor would be shut out.
“The implication of this is that we are planting a time-bomb in this country. We should direct our relevant committees to investigate the recent recruitment in all the ministries, departments and agencies of government, and whoever is involved should be punished.
“Until we are able to punish people for this crime, the insecurity we have in this country today will be a child’s play,”
While corroborating Senator Ndoma’s account, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume (PDP, Borno Central) told the Senate that “There was a boy from my constituency who graduated with second class upper and could not get a job for four years. He had been driving a taxi for someone in Abuja here before he came to tell me that one government agency was collecting N200, 000 from each job applicant.
“I did not want to give him the money because I couldn’t imagine that kind of thing could be happening, but he was begging me and in the end, I gave him the money.
“When he went there to pay the money, they told him the charges had gone up to N400,000. He was honest enough to come back to me to return the money I gave him. I asked him ‘what should I do again?’ He said he would be grateful if I should just give him the money to buy his own taxi which he is driving in Abuja today,”
These revelations moved the Senate to adopt a motion sponsored by Senator Abubakar Bagudu (PDP, Kebbi Central), directing its Committees on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs and Labour, Employment and Productivity to probe the recruitment exercises of federal MDAs in the last two years.