Reps, JAMB Clash Over 300 Employment Slots

The House of Representatives Committee on Job Racketeering and the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) yesterday sharply disagreed on the lopsided employment of 300 staff by the agency.

While the committee insisted that the employment which took place between 2015 and 2023 was against federal character principle, JAMB maintained it followed the principle and it was done out of exigency.

At its resumed hearing, the panel decried lack of adherence to extant regulation of public service saying, it discovered that JAMB employed the staff without advertising and demanded that the list of all the employees should be immediately submitted.

The chairman of the ad-hoc committee Hon Yussuf Gagdi while grilling the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede said the agency has shortchanged many Nigerians citizens according to their employment records.

Gagdi said from the documents available to the panel, the board had been employing without due process of advertisement, shortlisting and interview of job seekers.

The chairman and other members of the panel stated that JAMB has so far relied on waivers for recruitment of staff against the provisions of the law on non-engagement of more than 100 staff annually.

Gadgi stressed that recruiting about 300 staff through waiver was against the federal character, saying a waiver is to be granted only if an agency is collapsing.

He said, “What makes you think advertising wouldn’t have been better? You have the capacity to screen the people that apply to get better hands to do those jobs. I’m asking this because we are most interested in correcting the fraud associated with waivers.”

But, Oloyede, in his response said the board followed the federal character principles in the job recruitment exercise it conducted from 2015 till date.

He said the board had gotten a waiver from the relevant agencies to employ staff to replace those that had left, disclosing that the board had five sets of recruitment in the period under review.

The registrar said JAMB had sought a waiver to recruit over 300 people instead of advertising because of exigencies of duty as about 12-13 centres were coming on board and there was need to man them.

“We used the waiver because we believe the exigency of the time and the nature of our work deserves it. If we were to advertise for the three hundred, we wouldn’t be able to meet up with what we needed them for.

“I believe very strongly that it was very necessary at that time that we recruited and I assure you that we did not surcharge those who are qualified,” Oloyede said.

He also said the alleged lopsided employment by the examination body was due to the need to fill vacancies in the over 40 offices in different states of the federation, adding that most of the staff recruitment was done after consultation with state governors.

However, Gagdi in his ruling said the agency must submit the nominal roll of its staff recruited within the period in tabular form state by state.

On the other hand, the committee took more oral testimonies from Babamasi Jalo, Abdulraziz Azara, Musa Ibrahim and two other victims of employment racketeering by the former staff of the Federal Character Commission (FCC) Haruna Kolo.

Jalo told the panel that Kolo had collected N1.2 million from him for IPPIS capturing and asked him to look for other persons to be employed into the FCC and the National Institute of Oceanography and Marine Research Lagos for salary payment.

The witness said he made several payments of huge funds into the accused man’s account number running into millions of naira adding that the suspect told him that he transfers all the money to the chairperson of the commission.

The committee after the testimonies, ruled that Kolo, the Director of IPPIS in the Office of Accountant-General of the Federation and the other accused persons in the scandal must appear unfailingly before it concludes the investigation.

The ad-hoc committee last week issued a warrant of arrest on Kolo, a former staff of FCC who allegedly acted as a middleman for the selling of employment slots at the commission.

While issuing the warrant, the panel chairman, Gagdi said if Kolo does not show up for the probe, he would be brought in by the security agencies, and instructed his current employer, AMCON to produce the staff for the probe.