The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged that the 774,000 jobs proposed by the Federal Government under the Special Works Program (SWP) have been hijacked by the ALL Progressive Congress (APC) godfathers. Kola Ologbondiyon, the PDP National Publicity Secretary made the claim describing the method of recruitment by the APC administration as “Illegal and anti-people. He alleged that political godfathers in the APC have taken over the allocation of the jobs to their associates and friends instead of the generality of Nigerians.
Ologbondiyon further stated that the process was an injustice to unemployed Nigerians who have no godfathers or affiliated to any political party.
According to him, his party, PDP is not against the creation of the job opportunities to Nigerians, but are seriously against the misconduct of the allocation in the process which has tactically edged out those that are not connected to APC, demanding it must be conducted in an open and transparent process.
In his statement, “The PDP rejects a situation where, in each local government area, 800 slots of the 1000 jobs have already been penciled off to political cronies while the remaining 200 openings are thrown open for a contest to the public, which also includes politically affiliated persons.
“Such brash violation of the principle of fairness and equal opportunity by the APC and its administration is a direct invitation to restiveness and acrimony in the country and as such, should be immediately rescinded in the national interest.
“This is especially given allegations already in the public space that the resort to the political allocation of jobs is designed by selfish APC leaders to corner the opportunities for selfish pecuniary reasons.
“Consequently, our party charges the Federal Government to rescind the resort to political allocation and only engage Nigerians through an open, transparent, and all-inclusive process in the allocation of the 774,000 jobs.”
The State Minister for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, recently disclosed that the opportunity was designed for all Nigerians and not for only APC members as alleged by the PDP.
Keyamo had accused some politicians of blackmailing and pressuring him and his office into allocating some slots in the 774,000 jobs approved by President Buhari for them which he kicked against.
Consequently, the Minister threatened to resign if politicians would have their way to hijack jobs meant for the generality of Nigerians. The Jobs if finally conducted is aimed at employing unskilled Nigerians to participate in public jobs that would earn them N20,000 per month.
