When in 2015 Muhammadu Buhari was soliciting for votes from Nigerians, he said “Jobs, jobs and jobs” were going to be his focus. But five years down the line, the unemployment rate has continued to trend upward. In fact, it is currently 23.ipercent from less than 7 percent five years ago. What that means is that many Nigerians have since joined the burgeoning unemployment market. Although government has done one or two things aimed at lifting the citizens from the unemployment bracket, in other words, poverty, the efforts can be best described as scratching the surface.
Through the Social Investment Programme which has four legs- Home grown school feeding programme; Conditional cash transfer (CCT); Government enterprise and empower programme (GEEP), and N-Power- a few Nigerians have been reached.
The current effort to recruit some youths for some menial jobs, for a period of three months, may have pitted the National Assembly against Festus Keyamo, minister of state for Labour and Employment.
The face-off between the federal lawmakers and Keyamo, over the recruitment of 774,000 community workers by the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), has taken a frosty dimension as the minister has insisted on driving the programme despite directive by lawmakers to suspend it.
The lawmakers vehemently opposed the recruitment scheme and have resolved they would do everything within their legislative powers to right the wrong. Keyamo has also accused the lawmakers of pecuniary motive to snatch the recruitment scheme and share the slots among themselves, a situation he described as unconstitutional.
He pointedly said that 15 percent slots had been given to the lawmakers and that they wanted to hijack the entire thing.
The recruitment programme is an initiative of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, and was on Monday, 6th of April, 2020, announced for implementation by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed.
The scheme, which is to be extended to the 36 states and FCT from October- December, 2020 as a means of mitigating the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy, was expected to last for only three months.
According to the government, the Programme would provide modest stipends for itinerant workers to undertake roads rehabilitation and social housing construction, urban and rural sanitation, health extension and other critical services.
Buhari had directed that the NDE should collaborate with other Ministries with rural components in their mandates to work out the modalities for the execution of the programme.
However, the Minister of state for labour and employment, Festus Keyamo claims that he was, through a letter from the President, referenced SH/COS/14/A/1217 and dated 6 May, 2020, authorised to supervise the execution of the Special Public Works Programme domiciled under the NDE.
He said he was fully backed by Section 6(2) of the NED Act, which stipulates that “Director-General of NDE shall, subject to this Act, be the Chief Executive of the Directorate and shall be responsible to the Minister for the day-to-day management of the affairs of the Directorate.”
By halting of the recruitment programme by the National Assembly upon constitutional claims by the minister to necessarily drive it, it remains a big question for who is actually right or wrong.
According to NDE, N52 billion has been appropriated for execution of the programme. It further revealed that out of this amount, the sum of N46.44 billion is for actual payment of the stipends of those to be engaged while the balance of N5.56 billion is for the purchase of tools and light equipment, transportation, storage and security of the equipment in all the 774 LGAs in the country.
Approximately, the sum of N7.183 million is to be expended per LGA for the three-month period while the 774,000 Nigerians that are to be employed will be paid N60,000.00 each for services rendered.
A 20-member States’ Selection Committee that will draw out the 774,000 Nigerians for the jobs has since been formed by Keyamo. This is where disagreement between the legislators and the Minister began.
Going by what Keyamo has claimed, the States’ Selection Committees have been instructed to allot to political office holders 15 percent of the total beneficiaries in each state.
Trouble started when the National Assembly joint committee on labour, employment and productivity invited Keyamo to appear before it. But the meeting however, ended in chaos as the Minister, and the lawmakers openly traded harsh words.
Serious disagreement erupted when Nasiru Ladan Argungu, director general of NDE, could not defend satisfactorily how the 20-member state selection committee was constituted.
Kayemo, who refused to give adequate explanations, however, insisted that the lawmakers lacked powers to question him on the constitution of the committees. Decorum was thrown to the wind as the lawmakers accused the Minister of inappropriately hijacking the programme.
Godiya Akwashiki, chairman of the joint committee, ruled that the meeting be moved into a closed session, when it became rowdy but, Keyamo firmly protested. They accused Kayamo of attempting to bend the rules, and to dictate the proceedings. They asked him to apologise.
But, Keyamo, who angrily walked out, told journalists that the lawmakers were intimidating him because he refused to allow them hijack the employment process.
“The root of the matter is that they want me to bring the entire programme to the committees, for them to direct as to how it will be executed. And that is not their powers,” he stated.
But Akwashiki denied the allegations levelled against the lawmakers. He insisted “they were duly carrying out their oversight function.”
Consequently, the National Assembly directed that the programme be suspended. The Senate spokesperson, Ajibola Basiru and his House of Representatives counterpart, Benjamin Kalu gave the directive in a statement.
It stated that the National Assembly was concerned about the proper and effective implementation of the engagement process.
Meanwhile, Senate President Ahmad Lawan insisted that the recruitment will remain suspended till a valid explanation on the modalities of execution is given by the NDE, and the Minister.
Despite the visit of Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour, to the leadership of NASS where he apologised on behalf of Keyamo, the National Assembly has maintained its stance, and Keyamo has also insisted the programme would not in any way be suspended.
Keyamo said that the directives by the lawmakers are against the provisions of the NDE Act made by the National Assembly itself and the Constitutional provisions on Separation of Powers.
“By virtue of Section 3 (2) of the NDE Act, as supervising Minister, I am the Chairman of the Board of NDE that superintendents and gives directions to the Management of the NDE. By virtue of section 15 of the NDE Act, I am authorized to give general directives to the Board and Management, with which they must comply.
“By virtue of Section 16 (1) of the NDE Act, the supervising Minister has the sole prerogative to constitute Committees for the Agency. Also, by a memo Ref: CAO.143/S.1/T11/8 dated October 18, 2019, and forwarded to all Government functionaries by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, I was mandated by Mr. President to oversee all the activities of the National Directorate of Employment.
”In addition, by a letter, Ref: SH/COS/14/A/1217 dated 6 May, 2020, Mr. President, once again, approved that I supervise the preparation and execution of the Special PublicWorks Programme domiciled under the NDE
“However, the National Assembly swept aside all these provisions of the law and Presidential directives and authorised the DG of NDE to proceed to submit a plan without the express approval of the Minister. This was done in a desperate bid to get me out of the way at all cost,” Kayemo claimed.
Meanwhile, since the Federal Government announced plans to begin this recruitment process, fear and apprehension have not left the minds of many concerned Nigerians.
These worries, understandably, was against the backdrop of what happened six years back (2014) during the Nigerian Immigration Services (NIS) recruitment tragedy, where at least 16 people lost their lives in desperate stampedes for government jobs and many were sustained several degrees of injuries.
Sadly, the careless way and manner in which the lives of about 16 youths were loss in 2014, when hundreds of thousands were invited to apply for fewer than 5,000 positions into Nigerian Immigration Service, is very fresh in the memories of many Nigerians.
Though, many Nigerians are currently out of paid employment as the National Bureau Statistics (NBS) 2019 report, states that unemployment rate stood at 23.1 percent, and underemployment of 16.6 percent, largely due to the unstable economic situation, and closure of companies due to harsh operating business environment, but pundits believed that carrying out an examination exercise that would enable the employment of 774,000 Nigerians, signals the return of the dark era.
The above listed factors were further compounded by the outbreak of coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic that brought the prices of crude oil, Nigeria’s main source of revenue, below the production cost of $30 per barrel.
BDSUNDAY can recall that apart from the 16 persons that died during the Immigration recruitment saga, several others also sustained injuries as a result of overcrowding and stampedes that took place in the examination centres located across the country.
The lives of these young Nigerians were cut short in their prime, which explains the little or no value political leadership in Africa’s most populous and oil rich economy, places on lives. It is very certain, without doubt, that the families of those who lost their lives in this unfortunate incident are still mourning their loved ones, and the Federal Government wants to put another millions of Nigerians through the tortuous experience of Nigeria’s recruitment process.
“It is very sad that leadership in Nigeria does not value human life especially those of the people they sworn by oath to govern. To me, it does not make any economic sense that government would spend billions of naira to employ hundreds of thousands of Nigeria that would be paid peanut as monthly allowance, just for three months,” said Tony Anakebe, a renowned analyst.
Continuing, he questioned, “What would N20,000 do for a family man or woman that would make such a person to put his life in danger of going through recruitment exercise in Nigeria, which would probably be like what happened in 2014 during the Nigeria Immigration recruitment tragedy.”
He said that he has always been an advocate of industrialisation and promotion of good business environment that would enable intended investors as well as existing businesses to grow. “When government creates friendly business environment many jobs would be created as companies continue to thrive, and by that way, many Nigerians would be taken away from the unemployment market,” he said.
