Despite the hiring embargo enforced by the Federal Government since 2020, several federal ministries, departments, and agencies have persisted in backdoor recruitment, according to our correspondents’ investigations.
The Federal Inland Revenue Service, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited, Central Bank of Nigeria, and the Nigeria Customs Service, among other MDAs, are among those who have been threatened by the Federal Government with sanctions for their involvement in the illicit activity.
Investigations revealed that some organizations simply replaced retired or deceased officials with friends and family while others simply issued employment letters to job seekers that were not recognized by the Federal Civil Service Commission and the Office of the Head of the Federation’s Civil Service.
But the OHCSF and the Federal Civil Service Commission were not consulted before making the replacements.
The Federal Ministry of Works nabbed certain civil servants who were involved in employment racketeering, as had previously reported.
It was also mentioned how the OHCSF discovered over 1,500 civil servants working in a ministry with phony employment documents.
This was confirmed by Dr. Folasade Yemi-Esan, Head of the Federal Civil Service, who stated that her agency had discovered a total of 1,618 employees whose job documents were either phony or unlawful in the Federal Civil Service.
This is despite the government’s restriction on hiring.
According to reports from 2019, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation hired numerous people without carrying out the proper hiring procedures.
Numerous organisations, such as the Niger Delta Youth Consort of Nigeria, voiced their displeasure with the NNPC for excluding the area and those from the south from the covert recruitment.
Chuks Onuoha, the National Coordinator of the NDYCN, denounced the practice as reprehensible, while Kenny Obateru, the then-NNPC spokesman, denied the recruitment took place.
He claimed that rather than hiring new employees from outside the system, the NNPC management filled the positions with talented individuals who were already part of the system.
However, candidates who advanced to the last round of screening said the oil company replaced their names with those of others.
“The NNPC replaced most of the EH positions under the guise of a hastily devised plan code-named Internal Open Resource where some people, whose contracted third-party staff members did not meet the necessary experience and qualifications in the advertised EH vacancies, are being deployed through the backdoor in an unfortunate and depressing attempt to jettison the EH merit list,” the President of Transparency in Recruitment at Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, Felix Sunday
Three Fridays ago, the current NNPC spokesman, Garba Deen Muhammad, urged one of our correspondents to send him a WhatsApp message, but as of the time this report was filed, he has not yet replied to the message.
Similar to the Federal Inland Revenue Service, which was embroiled in a hiring scandal in 2021 after it came to light that it had covertly hired 2,000 people, the development put a strain on the agency’s finances.
The Nigerian Civil Service Union made this disclosure in a petition to the FIRS Chairman, Muhammad Namu, in June 2021. The union also made it known that the agency was having trouble paying salaries at some point following the staff members’ covert engagement within a time frame of 18 months.
It asked that directors who had retired and other staff members not be rehired.
When approached about the complaints against the service, Tobi Wojuola’s media aide declined to comment.
Timi Bomodi, the spokesman for the Nigerian Customs Service, stated that there had been no backdoor recruiting in the service in response to claims of unlawful recruitment.
No other government ministry or agency in Nigeria has a recruitment procedure that is as open and transparent as the Nigeria Customs Service’s, he continued.
“Our hiring process includes candidates from each of the 774 local government districts. Candidates are required to take aptitude tests before being chosen based on their skills. Before being hired by the service, you do not need to know anyone.
Additionally, it was claimed that the Central Bank of Nigeria hired 909 employees in less than two years without posting any job openings. The Federal Character Commission looked into the claim, but nothing has come of it.
Experiences of our applicants
However, applicants for employment have complained that the MDAs’ hiring practices are opaque.
Sola Ogunbiyi, a former NCS applicant, claimed that numerous inconsistencies were present in the nation’s government job recruitment procedure.
I submitted an application to join the Customs in 2019,” he declared. I don’t like how the whole thing turned out. My enthusiasm in working for the federal government was destroyed by the entire procedure, which also led me to believe that these positions are only available to people with connections.
“You cannot claim that all public service employees were hired on the basis of merit. I learned about some persons who had been helped by a well-known politician to join the Customs and other government agencies merely to support his structure when I returned to my hometown because I am stationed in Lagos.
After a more difficult test than the one for the Customs, I was hired the next year by one of the top commercial banks in the nation. Because of the recruitment procedure, government agencies and private businesses hire people with quite different attributes. Many things will continue to go wrong unless we fix it.
“I have tried to apply to government agencies, but all my efforts have been in vain,” Yemisi Odubanjo, a different applicant, said. My work for private organizations hasn’t been the same in that regard.
“I was successful in obtaining several of the positions I applied for. I believe that the hiring procedure in government organizations is not sufficiently transparent. You cannot acquire a job based alone on your credentials and potential; you must either know someone or bribe your way in.
“I last applied for a government position during the most recent FIRS recruiting. I couldn’t afford the large fee that was demanded of me in order to obtain the job.
Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor, Senior Vice President for Africa at the Human Health Education and Research Foundation, commented on the matter and said that any backdoor hiring would hurt the budget.
“How will they pay those who are employed through the backdoor? is the dilemma,” he said. Who will pay for them? If the health sector is affected, for example, that area of the budget suffers because they must start paying people they didn’t plan to pay while accepting money.
“Service delivery will deteriorate as a result; without those services, people may die, and they may also experience a variety of lifelong consequences.
