When the House of Representatives constituted the Yusuf Gagdi-led adhoc committee to investigate MDAs, parastatals and tertiary institutions on recruitment/employment racketeering as well as mismanagement of the integrated payroll and personnel information system (IPPIS), most Nigerians knew intuitively from antecedents that revelations from the committee would be startling. And true to type, surprising revelations are already coming out from the probe. As a matter of fact, after watching proceedings of the Gagdi-led adhoc committee, particularly when the chairperson of Federal Character Commission (FCC), Muhaeeba Dankaka, and other commissioners appeared before it to raise allegations and counter-allegations of job racketeering, my hope of a better Nigeria started waning considerably.
The committee’s interface with the team from FCC provided a clear answer as to why the commission is utterly ineffective. It further lent credence to the clamour for its radical overhaul.
Appearing before the committee, some commissioners accused the FCC chairperson of neck-deep involvement in job racketeering among other serious corrupt practices. In a document submitted to the committee, the commissioners alleged that the chairperson had severally sold job slots to some Nigerians. “Job seekers pay as low as N750, 000 and as high as N7 million, depending on the MDAs the jobs are being sought” the commissioners alleged.
Specifically, the commissioner representing Rivers, Nwokocha Onyekachi, told the committee that the commission is “dysfunctional”,
insisting that the majority of the commissioners are excluded from the commission’s day-to-day operations. Onyekachi said Dankaka runs the commission like a “sole administrator” and makes decisions independently without compliance with the provisions of the FCC act which require resolutions to be passed in a plenary involving all the commissioners. “We do not have a functional commission. No commissioner has the opportunity to see how their states fare, which is the objective of constituting a full commission with representatives from all the states of the federation. Everything in the commission is run under the table and with serious opaqueness,” Onyekachi said. Like Onyekachi, his counterpart representing Osun State, Abdulrazak Adeoye, alleged that the FCC chairperson engages in selling job opportunities to individuals. According to Adeoye, she surreptitiously removed the names of Nigerians from the payroll of FCC and replaced them without the knowledge of most commissioners. He added that he and other commissioners campaigning against the illegality in the FCC are known as an integrity group who are unapologetically against the illegality that will not be of help to the country as a whole.
What was Dankaka’s response? She described the allegations against her as false, insisting that her stance against corruption was the reason the commissioners heaped all the allegations on her. “Before I got to this place (FCC), they were selling job slots. The place was like a marketplace. You can find out from people that live in Abuja if I am lying,” she said.
Dankaka said prior to her assumption of office in July 2020, all the commissioners were selling jobs. In an attempt to turn the tables on the commissioners, she insisted that her refusal to join them was at the heart of all the allegations against her. “For instance, the commissioner representing Osun State bought a property and told the person he will be paying with job slots,” she told the committee.
The FCC has been a cesspool of corruption where graft, which manifests in brazen selling of jobs, takes place recklessly. But the allegations that some highly placed persons at the FCC are deeply involved in job racketeering is something that became more pronounced under the current leadership of this strategic agency. And if the revelation at the House of Reps’ committee is not perturbing enough then nothing will. It is, indeed, worrisome that as a nation, Nigeria is at a point where jobs are being sold openly like any other cheap commodity, with an agency like the FCC said to be deeply involved.
Only recently, the Head of Service of the Federation, Folashade Yemi-Esan, declared that the government uncovered 1,618 fake employment letters. What she is yet to tell Nigerians is the measures taken so far to ensure those behind this act face the full wrath of the law. Regardless of the narrative that one elects to believe – whether to go with the allegations of the commissioners or those made by the chairperson, it is clear that there is a rot of monumental proportion at the FCC and the commission, as currently constituted, cannot deliver its key mandate. Established in 1996 by the military regime of the late General Sani Abacha and later included in the 1999 constitution (as amended) in Third Schedule Part 1, as one of the 14 independent federal executive bodies, the FCC is essentially saddled with the task of working out an equitable formula, subject to the approval of the president, for the distribution of positions in the public service as well as political appointments.
It must be noted that the federal character principle which the FCC is mandated to ensure compliance seeks to guard against predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups, in federal government ministries, agencies and parastatals.
To ensure effectiveness, there is an approved formula for equitable distribution across states which provides that each state should produce 2.75% of the total work force, with an acceptable range of 2.5% to 3%. Of course, the FCT is to take up 1%.
Further still, as part of measures aimed at ensuring balancing between the clamour for equity and merit, the law provides that candidates should first of all meet the criteria set out in the vacancy and then fulfil federal character criteria.
Interestingly, it is provided that vacancies for positions in the federal civil service are to be advertised in one Northern and one Southern newspaper and also on the web.
The FCC commissioners, one per each state of the federation, are saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that these provisions are religiously adhered to by monitoring the recruitment process into MDAs and parastatals, to guarantee the implementation of federal character.
But because of widespread graft and sheer ineffectiveness which permeate the FCC, these plausible provisions are often observed in breach.
In a 2020 article titled, “Nigeria’s Federal Character Commission (FCC): a critical appraisal” published by Oxford Development Studies, the trio of Leila Demarest, Arnim Langer and Ukoha Ukiwo offered a damning verdict on the commission, recommending the need to address its image problem. The FCC, the trio said, “will have to brush up its image with regard to how the institution itself respects federal character. There are also notable concerns with corruption which need to be rooted out”.
The recent accusation and counter accusation between Dankaka and some commissioners further confirms the enormity of the rot in the FCC.
Indeed, how an agency established specifically to guarantee equity and fairness in the distribution of government appointments among the 36 states of the federation and the FCT became enmeshed in allegations of job racketeering is one of the wonders of the Nigerian nation.
It is so brazen that accusations and counter-accusations of job racketeering are coming from those saddled with the responsibility of piloting the affairs of this agency. It is quite heart-rending to imagine that they are the ones reported to be deeply involved in the job-selling scam.
If there is anyone who still wonders why the FCC has failed with distinction in discharging its responsibilities, the revelations at the Gagdi led-committee of the parliament provides a fitting answer. To the extent that everything rises or falls with leadership, I think Dankaka has failed woefully in providing the needed direction for an agency as critical as the FCC. It is more perplexing for me, like most Nigerians, to hear that she is being accused of job racketeering by no other persons than the commissioners.
Without meaning to pre-empt the parliament’s committee, the time is long ripe for a total overhaul of the FCC. It is crystal clear that the Dankaka-led FCC has failed and should be shown the way out. The stench from FCC is nauseating. The agency is oozing a foul smell and there is an urgent need for a deodorant.
But one fundamental thing that needs to be done before or after the sack of the FCC as currently constituted is for the government to commission a special committee to undertake thorough investigations into allegations of job racketeering.