• Rejects 30 slots for each lawmaker
• Party insists allotment fair, transparent
The minority caucus in the House of Representatives, yesterday, accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of hijacking the 774,000 public jobs scheme.
Ndudi Elumelu, who led the caucus, alleged that the job allotment was in favour of certain interests in the APC to the detriment of job seekers.
Consequently, the caucus rejected the 30 slots allotted to each member of the House for their local government areas.
In a statement, the lawmakers 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 the people.
Elumelu, who represents Aniocha North/Aniocha South and Oshimili North and South Federal Constituency of Delta State, insisted:”The 30 persons allotment to be supervised by a member in each of the local government areas cannot, by any criteria, be said to be a true representation of the people they are mandated to represent.
“It 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 leaning. 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 programme benefit Nigerians and not enmeshed in allegations of sharp practices as witnessed in the COVID-19 palliative distribution?”
The caucus charged President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately order a review of the implementation process to ensure that the targeted citizens benefit from the programme.
APC, however, disagreed with the position of the lawmakers, saying there was no iota of truth in the claim.
In its reaction, the party’s spokesman, Mr. Yekini Nabena, argued that the exercise carried out by the Minister of State for Labour, Festus Keyamo (SAN) was transparently done without any form of political consideration.
“Traditional rulers, religious leaders and local government chairmen across the country got the job 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 wolf where there is none. The truth is that we got it right on this particular exercise supervised by Keyamo.”
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