THE All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State has faulted the process put in place for the planned recruitment of 774,000 Nigerians into the Federal Government special public works scheme, which was scheduled to hold across the 33 local government areas of the state on Thursday and Friday of last week.
The programme, for which N52 billion has been allocated in the 2020 budget, is aimed at employing 774,000 citizens, a thousand from each of the local government areas in the country and in the case of Oyo State, it is expected that 33,000 residents would be considered to benefit in the scheme.
However, the APC in the state, in a statement on Tuesday in Ibadan by its assistant publicity secretary, Prince Ayobami Adejumo, alleged that the social intervention programme was hijacked and disrupted by members of the ruling PDP.
It, therefore, urged the Federal Government to “act promptly in the interest of the general masses” by reviewing the registration exercise in the state.
The opposition party’s statement reads in part: “In their usual character, leaders and members of the Peoples Democratic Party took the advantage of being in government in the state to disrupt the exercise in most local government council secretariats where officials of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) were deployed to distribute recruitment forms to prospective beneficiaries without any discrimination.
“It became a show of shame in most council secretariats on both days (Thursday and Friday last week) when chieftains and members of the Oyo PDP, as well as some political appointees of the state, mobilised members of their party and some thugs to alter the peaceful process being carried out by the relevant officials.
“In the process, they harassed the NDE personnel deployed for the exercise and seized the registration forms which they carted away and later distributed to only their party loyalists and members of their families.
“There are reports and documentary evidence in support of this claim as many hapless members of the society who trooped out with a view to obtaining the forms were denied their rights.
“In Ibadan North, Ibadan North-East, Lagelu, Akinyele, Ibarapa-East, Iwajowa, Ogo-Oluwa, Afijio, Oyo East, Saki-East and other local government areas, the story was the same as PDP members unleashed terror on officials and innocent citizens in a bid to take possession of all the registration forms.
“This development did not come as a surprise to the good people of the state. Only recently, attempts by the governor himself to distribute some of the COVID-19 relief items donated by CACOVID ostensibly among the residents did not happen without an eruption of violence in the Odinjo area of Ibadan, the state capital.
“As a matter of fact, the implementation committee members appointed for the exercise in our dear state have been overwhelmed by the antics of PDP gladiators who see the project as another opportunity to steal from a federal purse at the expense of original beneficiaries.
“It is on this premise that we are urging the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Labour and Productivity, to review the registration exercise in Oyo State and act promptly in the interest of the general masses.”
