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774, 000 Jobs: Reps Minority Caucus accuses APC of high jacking slots

By Adamu Abuh, Abuja
18 August 2020   |   4:06 pm
The Minority Caucus in the House of Representatives yesterday accused chieftains of the All progressive Congress (APC) of high jacking the 774 public jobs scheme to themselves.

House of Representatives PHOTO: Twitter

……APC insist slot shared fairly and equitably

The Minority Caucus in the House of Representatives yesterday accused chieftains of the All progressive Congress (APC) of high jacking the 774 public jobs scheme to themselves.

APC however disagreed with the position of the lawmakers arguing there was no iota of truth in the claim.

The Mr Ndudi ELumelu led caucus while alleging that the jobs allotment was in favour certain interests in the APC to the detriment of job seekers, he called for more transparency and a review of the criteria being used for the jobs allotment.

The caucus rejected the 30 job slots allotted to each member of the House for their respective local government areas under the public jobs scheme.

The caucus in a statement described the allotment of 30 out of the 1000 slots per local government, as grossly unfair and unacceptable since they are the true representatives of Nigerians.

Elumelu who also represents Aniocha North/Aniocha South and Oshimili North and South Federal Constituency of Delta state, insisted that “the 30 persons allotment to be supervised by a member in each of the local government areas, cannot by any criteria, said to be a true representation of the people they are mandated to represent.

It noted: “The 30 persons allotment per local government for lawmakers is grossly unfair, inadequate and unacceptable to Nigerians. As the representatives of the people, we are closer to them and they directly interact with us, irrespective of religion, class and political affiliations.

“All Nigerians living in our constituencies are our constituents, irrespective of political leanings. We have a responsibility to protect their interests at all times. As such lawmakers ought to have been carried along on the allotment.

“Moreover, the questions are, what criteria is being used in the job allotments? Given the 30 persons out of the 1000 per local government area allotted to federal lawmakers, what happens to the remaining 970? What answers do we give Nigerians? How do we ensure that the program benefited Nigerians and not enmeshed in allegations of sharp practices as witnessed in the COVID-19 palliative distribution?”

The caucus charged President Muhamamdu Buhari to immediately order a review of the implementation process to ensure that the targeted citizens benefited from the program as intended.

Reacting, the APC spokesperson, Mr Yekini Nabena insist the exercise carried by by the Minister of state for labour, Mr Festus Keyamo remains was transparently done without any form of political consideration.

Said he: “Traditional rulers, religious leaders and local government chairmen across the country got the jobs slots. Is ELumelu saying they are all APC card carrying members? I will give you a personal example, my local government chairman in Sagbama council of Bayelsa state is a PDP member.

“The problem with these PDP members is that they have all been infected with the PDP virus. They should stop crying wolve where there is none. The truth is we got it right on this particular exercise supervised by Keyamo.”

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