Protests as FG agency allegedly employed northerners secretly during holiday

Mounir Gwarzo, SEC director-general

SEC accused of secretly employing Northerners

- The Securities and Exchange Commis­sion (SEC) has se­cretly employed 20 mem­bers of staff

- Most of them from Kano state and a few states in the North

- The new workers were asked to report to work without any induction or training

A report by The Authority indicates that the Securities and Exchange Commis­sion (SEC) has secretly employed 20 mem­bers of staff.

According to the report, most of the new workers are from Kano state and a few states in the North, and they were asked to report to work without any induction or training

The interview of the can­didates was reportedly carried out on Friday, December 23, 2016 and they were hurriedly asked to report for work on Wednesday, De­cember 27, 2016.

The report stated that the workers were engaged when activities in SEC were almost shut down for the year.

Critics of the exercise also alleged that the vacancies were not advertised while the man­agement favoured candi­dates from northern states, especially Kano state, the home-state of SEC’s Di­rector-General, Mounir Gwarzo.

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Reacting to the report, SEC’s head of corpo­rate communications, Naif Abdulssalam, said the posi­tions were not advertised be­cause they were for junior of­ficers.

He also said it ob­tained a waiver from the Fed­eral Character Commission for the recruitment of 20 jun­ior staff.

Meanwhile, unnamed sources quoted in the report, stated that the candidates ought to come from the catchment states of Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger and the Federal Capital Ter­ritory (FCT) but the agency gave preferential treatment to Kano.

A source at the com­mission said some senior workers were also employed.

The source said: “No training or induction was conducted. The whole thing was shroud­ed in secrecy and most mem­bers of staff in the commis­sion were not even aware of what was going on.”

SEC has been in a running battle with the House of Representatives Committee on Federal Char­acter over a similar employ­ment last year.

He said: “No training or induction was conducted. The whole thing was shroud­ed in secrecy and most mem­bers of staff in the commis­sion were not even aware of what was going on.”

On his part, the public relations offic­er of the Federal Character Commission, Abdullahi Id­ris, confirmed that a waiver was granted to SEC on ad­vertisement to recruit junior employees.

He explained that waiv­ers are granted on such cases when the number of those to be recruited is minimal and for the exigency of time.

In a related development, the spokesperson of Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF), Professor Ango Abdullahi has accused President Buhari of short-changing the north.

Abdullahi said the north is not properly represented in Buhari's government, adding that the president has not helped the region in terms of the distribution of capital projects via government annual spending.

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