In November 2010, the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation launched a nationwide recruitment exercise for graduate
trainees and experienced personnel. The recruitment drive which was
managed by a prominent consulting firm based in Lagos was the
corporation’s second exercise in a period of three years, and had over a
million applicants from within and outside the country.
On Saturday, March 26, 2011, all the applicants took
part in a compulsory job aptitude test that was conducted simultaneously
in all the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory,
Abuja. A few months later, about 5,000 of the applicants who had passed
the aptitude test were invited for an interview at the Amphitheatre,
NNPC Towers, Central Business District, Abuja.
The interview exercise successfully held during the
months of June, July and August 2011, and all the interviewees were
promised reimbursement of expenses incurred on travel, hotel
accommodation and presentation materials. To aid this payment, the
consulting firm collected the bank details of all the interviewees who
kept their appointments.
It is well over a year since the interviews took
place and not a single person who participated in the exercise has been
contacted by either the NNPC or its consultants. Instead, the two
organisations have recently begun a new recruitment drive that is
completely the same in scope with the former exercise. Already, over a
million persons have submitted their online application, and thousands
more are sure to beat the deadline.
Even though the previous exercise has not been
concluded, the NNPC has released several millions of Naira to its HR
Department, and its consultants, to enable them conduct a successful
recruitment campaign. Nobody has said anything as regards the
overwhelming millions of public Naira spent on the last recruitment, why
the interviewees are yet to receive a dime, and why the result of the
interviews is been held back.
A few months ago, an employee of the consulting firm,
responding to a applicant’s allegation on the NNPC Nigeria Facebook
page that it had been instructed to commence payment to interviewees and
that DHL, its courier service provider, had begun the delivery of
appointment letters, said that it is not true. According to him, a top
official of NNPC has for unknown reasons failed to release funds for
reimbursement and has held on to the results of the interviews. The
man’s reaction prompted some fans of the page to suggest that, like the
case of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency recruitment, some
politicians might have hijacked the recruitment exercise as a scheme to
reward party members, cronies and supporters.
Is it possible that some persons at the helm of
affairs at the NNPC are using these recruitment exercises to enrich
themselves? Is it possible that the millions of unemployed Nigerian
youths are used merely as means to line the pockets of a privileged few?
Nigerians deserve answers to these posers.
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