Curbing secret recruitment in MDAs
As a means to checking secret recruitments into government ministries, departments and agencies the Senate is making moves to criminalise such illegal recruitments. This was made known at the plenary on Wednesday October 11, 2017 when the Senate passed a bill sponsored by Senator Biodun Olujimi for second reading. It is titled “A Bill For An Act To Make It An Offence For Vacant Positions In The Federal Civil Service To Be Filled Without Their Being Advertised And For Other Matters Connected Therewith, 2017.”
The bill, if and when it becomes law, will make any senior government official who approves an illegal recruitment liable for the offence and punishment. Section 2 of the proposed law states, “Any person, who violates the provisions of section 1 commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding N300, 000 or to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years or to both.”
Apart from advertising vacancies on notice boards for a period of three months before the commencement of recruitments, the bill also proposes that vacancies and their requirements are sent to the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) immediately upon the existence of such vacancies. The bill also proposes that after FCSC has been notified, it is expected to, on a monthly basis, publish every vacancy in the federal service in two national newspapers and one local newspaper in each state of the federation.
Senate President Bukola Saraki described it as “a bill for the people”. Olujimi, while leading the debate on the bill, said it had become common knowledge that employment in government parastatals in most cases was not based on merit “as Godfatherism, favouritism, nepotism and ethnicity have taken the front burner.” Senator James Manager agreed; he condemned the non-enforcement of federal character principle. Senator Suleiman Adokwe said the lawmakers massively support the bill as most of them were being blackmailed by their constituents who are looking for jobs.
In the past few decades that the Nigerian labour market became saturated with unemployed youths, MDAs took undue advantage of the situation to jettison due process by engaging in secret recruitments to fill vacant positions in the federal civil service. MDAs recruit secretly because the exercise is illegal. It is illegal because available vacancies are filled without the positions being duly advertised; a situation that provides windows for corruption to thrive.
Because the exercises are conducted secretly, only applicants who are related or know the chief executives of relevant MDAs get recruited. Today, a young applicant believes that he cannot secure a job without knowing someone. Besides the corrupt practices which secret recruitments are open to, such exercises regrettably allow for incompetent applicants to get into positions for which they lack requisite skills or qualifications.
Although it is not an excuse for any MDA to engage in secret recruitment, available vacancies in the federal civil service for some time have been very much below the number of qualified applicants. Even the vacancies naturally created by the retirement and death of some workers have not changed the disturbing rate of unemployment in the country. The ill-fated recruitment of March 17, 2013 into the Nigeria Immigration Service yet explains the tragedy that symbolises the state of unemployment in Nigeria. We therefore urge government to explore non-oil sectors to improve upon the country’s economy which would significantly help to reduce the current huge unemployment figures.
While we commend the Senate for passing this bill, we further recommend that the bill should make it mandatory for MDAs to deploy modern technology during recruitment exercises so that merit and federal character would count in the process. Technology could be deployed under a fair set of criteria to screen allapplicants. We also observe that the punishments stipulated for violators of the provisions of this bill are not stringent enough to deter offenders. Stiffer penalties are required to check secret recruitment into MDAs.