The Senate has directed its Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs to conduct a thorough investigation hearing into all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies’ (MDAs’) recruitment processes to determine their level of compliance with Sections 14(3) and 14(4) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
The directive given on Tuesday was sequel to a motion raised during plenary by Sen. Osita Ngwu, who expressed concern about the persistent challenges in achieving equity within Nigeria’s public service, including limited recruitment opportunities, skewed promotions based on years of service rather than merit, and a lack of mobility for workers outside the public sector.
In the motion entitled: “Urgent need to address systemic abuse and ineffective implementation of federal character principle in Nigeria’s public sector”, the lawmaker explained that the challenge was due to limited recruitment opportunities, unfair promotions based solely on years of service and insufficient avenues for worker mobility outside the public sector.
Quoting section 14(3) and (4) of the Constitution which provide that “no predominance of persons from a few states or a few ethnic or sectional groups should exist within the federal government or its agencies” to justify his position, Ugwu said the federal character principle mandated fair representation in federal appointments to reflect the linguistic, religious and geographic diversity of the country.
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He lamented that despite the focus on geographical quotas, imbalances still persisted with some institutions, often relocating problems rather than resolving them, while certain zones remained under-represented.
The senator expressed his worry that the process of addressing public sector disparities had been undermined by institutional inertia and lack of accountability.
The lawmakers also noted that despite constitutional provisions mandating fair representation across ethnic, linguistic, religious, and geographic lines, imbalances continued to exist in the employment of candidates into the public service.
Specifically, the legislators in the Red Chamber criticized most federal MDAs, including the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and its subsidiaries, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), among others, for allegedly failing to adhere to federal character principle in their recruitment processes.
The Senate, following intense debate of the motion, mandated the committee to investigate the issues raised and report back within three months with findings and recommendations to ensure fair and equitable representation in appointments, promotions, recruitment and infrastructure distribution in federal MDAs.
