Trouble Looms In N’ Delta Over NNPC’s Lopsided Employment
There is looming breakdown of law and order in the Niger Delta region following alleged cocked-eyed employment by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), undermining the region which produces the oil.
The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), in a press statement signed and made available to newsmen by the IYC president, Pereotubo Oweilaemi, Esq., said the agency has already seeded candidates for its ongoing employment.
“We have been reliably informed by competent sources within the NNPC that the Parastatal has shortlisted candidates for its ongoing employment exercise. However, to our chagrin, not more than ten persons from Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers States put together are featured in the list, while states in the Northern and Western parts of the Country got more than twenty slots each”.
According to him, the Ijaw Youth Council rejects the unfair employment, which only gave the Ijaw nation mere five slots, “IYC rejects the discriminatory and nepotistic employment. The Ijaw nation is feeding this Country with the mineral deposits found in her lands barely has five slots in the whole list. Meanwhile, only one state alone in the North has been shortlisted with not less than twenty persons. Is this the one Nigeria they're preaching?
He challenged NNPC to come public by publishing the shortlisted names on national dailies, “For the avoidance of doubt, NNPC should immediately publish the list of shortlisted candidates in the dailies for the world to see the truth. We have it on good authority that the Agency refuses to publish the list because of the disparities associated in the process.
“To perfect its divisive and apartheid employment process, the NNPC has resolved to surreptitiously call the shortlisted candidates for interview in order to cover up its fraudulent and nepotistic agenda just like what other agencies have been doing under this Buhari's regime.
Meanwhile, Barr Oweilaemi, has called on Nigerians to hold Dr Maikanti Baru, answerable for any breakdown of law and order in the region.
“It's either the Agency publishes the list of shortlisted candidates for the world to see its sincerity or we enjoin Nigerians to hold Dr. Maikanti Baru and the cabals in the presidency responsible for any crisis in the oil sector. The goose that lays the golden egg can no longer be an onlooker in the sharing of the dividends from the black gold which has been taken from our lands at the detriment of the people's lives.
“Enough is enough. If there is any disparity in the process then we call on the GMD to immediately correct it before it publishes the list. Doing that will in no doubt guarantee peace in the oil sector. The oil producing states cannot take less. Rather, special consideration should be given to these environmentally devastated and economically pauperized oil bearing states. That is the only panacea to address this injustice”, Oweilaemi, added.