‘Senators, Reps block children of the poor from getting juicy jobs’

Taiye Odewale Abuja

Facts have emerged on why qualified children of the poor in the country hardly get employed years after graduation into high rated public institutions in the land like the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its subsidiaries, National Intelligence Agency (NIA) , Federal Inland Revenue Service ( FIRS) etc. One of the facts amongst others, is the penchant for the lawmakers to railroad heads of such agencies into employing their children or relations through the back door when carrying out their oversight functions on the agencies or during interactive or budget defence sessions with them.

A classic example of such method was observed by our senate correspondent on Thursday last week when the top management of the Department of Petroleum Resources ((DPR) faced the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) for presentation on the agency’s budget performance in the outgoing year and defence of the 2018 estimates out of which a whooping N1.2bn was projected for overhead cost alone.

In a very glaring reciprocal arrangement, while the committee Chairman, Tayo Alasoadura ( APC Ondo Central ) and his members just glossed over the clearly bogus estimates made on all items under the overhead votes except the N355million voted for foreign trips, many of them at the end of the session bombarded the DPR Director ,Mr Mordecai Dantani Baba Ladan with curriculum vitae (CV) of their children and relations for instant jobs to which he said “consider it done” to the senators .

Other bogus sums the agency proposed under the overhead votes are , Advertisement N50m, courier services N19.1m, consulting services N102.3m, recruitment N2.5m, promotion N14.6m, fueling and lubricant for generators N182m, utilities generally N92.8m etc.

First to approach the DPR Director for such favour in room 301 Senate building that day was a female member of the committee from South West, followed by a male counterpart from South East and another male member of the committee from south -south after which all the DPR team and the committee members went into the Chairman’s office for further reciprocal arrangements.

“What you said you observed has been the practice of the years particularly since the advent of democracy whereby federal lawmakers use the advantage of their oversight function and power of appropriation on our agency and even other MDAs to get either their biological children or closed relations employed through the back door in what can be described as reciprocal arrangement or you rub my back, I rub yours sort of things,” she said . Another member of the team of a senior cadre, confided in the Blueprint that such arrangement is not limited to DPR but all other top rated government agencies including the conventional ministries where he said the lawmakers plant their candidates year in, year out.

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