Employment: States confront CBN over quota

BY Soni Daniel, Regional Editor, North
…As N-Assembly plans probe *Kogi tops staff list with 300, Imo 290
ABUJA — Few months after over 100 aggrieved senior staff of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, had raised the alarm over their deliberate stagnation by the management, some states have also criticized the nation’s apex bank for not employing many of their natives.
They are aggrieved that some states have been unduly favoured by the bank in the employment quota and positions offered them.
The bank staff had petitioned the CBN Governor,  Mallam Sanusi  Lamido Sanusi, to cause their stagnation to be lifted so that they could be promoted from Principal Managers to Assistant Directors in accordance with the extant  employment policy of the bank.
But while the governor is yet to address the grievance of the affected workers, some state governors are said to be angry with the CBN for what they see as a deliberate attempt by the nation’s banker not to engage many of their natives as staff of the leading financial institution in Nigeria.
Vanguard reliably gathered that some of the governors had sworn to take on the CBN management to explain why some states have been unduly favoured by the bank in terms of employment of their natives while some states do not have any appreciable number of indigenes in the same bank.
Some of the governors are said to have been shocked after going through the CBN staff nominal roll with a total of 5976 as at the end of September 2012, and discovering that certain states in the country had been unduly favoured by the bank in the employment.
Disparity in nominal roll
The nominal roll, which Vanguard obtained exclusively last night, showed a serious disparity in terms of the number of staff and positions from each of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
The list, which was compiled following the last set of recruitment of staff into the bank in September showed that of the 5976 staff on its employ, Kogi State tops the list with 300 indigenes, followed by Imo State with 290 natives and Akwa Ibom State with a total of 273 indigenes.
The list shows also that Sokoto State has the least number of natives on the employ of the CBN with 52 workers while the FCT has only 40.
It was gathered that because of the concerns raised by some states, the CBN had been forced to stop open recruitment and merely invites applications from some states to fill perceived employment gaps.
For instance, on September 22, 2012, a recruitment exercise meant to recruit natives of certain states considered by the CBN to be low, reportedly leaked to applicants from other states and the bank immediately cancelled the test that was conducted in the premises of the University of Abuja, Gwagwalada.
Trouble is said to have started when the text messages sent by the Human Resources Department of the bank to preferred applicants from Ebonyi, Zamfara, Bayelsa,  Sokoto, Yobe, Kebbi, Jigawa and Taraba states, were inadvertently relayed to applicants from other states by those who received the messages.
On arrival at the venue of the test on September 22, 2012, the head of HR of the CBN was said to have asked the applicants who were not directly invited for the examination to leave the hall but she was shouted down.
Angered by  the effrontery of the applicants, the director reportedly called off the test, not minding the trouble taken by the applicants, who had defied the heavy flooding on the Abuja-Lokoja Highway to come to Abuja for the test.
N-Assembly plans probe
However, a  member of the National Assembly, who said she was on holiday in her constituency, confirmed to Vanguard last night that some aggrieved workers and state officials had brought up the alleged lopsided appointments and promotions at the apex bank.
The politician said steps would be taken to address the issues involved to give justice to those concerned.
The lawmaker noted that it was necessary to find out how some states were unduly favoured in the appointment of very senior staff while others had none in the same institution where the principle of Federal Character is expected to apply.
But the CBN Director of Corporate Communications, Mr. Ugo Okoroafor, had told Vanguard last month, when the staff complained of stagnation, that the bank had not committed any infraction in its appointments and promotion of staff.
Okoroafor noted that the law establishing the CBN gives it the power to appoint and promote staff in a way that would facilitate the delivery of its core mandate to the nation.
culled: vanguard