Date Published: 05/08/10

Open Petition to the EFCC, ICPC against Governor Ikedi Ohakim on extortion

It has become imperative to write this petition based on what I call a deliberate extortion of money on the peaceful citizens of Imo State by Governor Ikedi Ohakim.

Sometime earlier this year, Governor Ohakim announced to the people of Imo State that he had created 10,000 job positions for graduates of Imo origin which was advertised on the newspapers. Subsequently, he named some designated banks in the country to sell job application scratch cards at the cost of N2,000 each. Over 50,000 scratch cards (translating to about 100 million naira) have been sold to the unsuspecting citizens of Imo State who desperately needed the jobs and had no choice but to pay the sum than miss out on the offer. Till date, nothing has been heard from Ohakim on the jobs which he had created for Imo Citizens before the application process. According to him, he was working with Consultants to create these jobs, and perhaps that’s why the applicants must pay for the services.

It is quite disgraceful that of all means used by the State Government of Imo to deceive the public, recruitment exercise which is supposed to benefit the job seekers will be used as a means of extorting money from them. What the government seems not to take into consideration is that N2,000 is a lot of money to an unemployed youth in Nigeria today especially when the payment does not guarantee getting the job. This is akin to the introduction and indirect imposition of handouts on University students which was later banned as illegal by the government. This act of compelling job seekers to pay a non-refundable fee to apply for job offers should be termed illegal and criminal and should never be allowed to be introduced into the public sector, let alone be associated with a state government. Even Banks and Private Corporations who pay higher wages to their workers and even sometimes hire consultants for their job recruitments do not ask for application fees for jobs, so why would a state Government who pays less to its workers take advantage of the high unemployment rate in the country to inflict more suffering on graduates who are the real victims of corruption ravaging the country.

I therefore call on the EFCC, ICPC, and Civil Organizations to come to the rescue of these Unemployed Imo Citizens before this negative trend spreads across the nation. The Imo State Government should be compelled to refund all the money collected from the applicants without delay, and if those jobs truly exist, they should be made available to the qualified public at no cost. The nation is still battling with rigged recruitment exercises where qualified and intelligent candidates give way for ‘connected’ candidates, therefore we should not allow these denied citizens to be subjected to further misery. 

Sincerely,

Gospel Obioma (gospelobioma@yahoo.com) 

Cc:  

EFCC (info@efccnigeria.org)

ICPC (info@icpc.gov.ng)