Central Bank of Nigeria – A list of at least 91 people tied to
influential or highly placed Nigerians who were recently offered juicy
appointments by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)in a hiring process
that was highly secretive has been revealed. SaharaReporters has
obtained a list of at least 91 people tied to influential or highly
placed Nigerians who were recently offered juicy appointments by the
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in a hiring process that was
highly secretive.
The list of beneficiaries of the CBN’s job largesse include a daughter
of former Vice President, Abubakar Atiku, a son of Mamman Daura, a
nephew of President Muhammadu Buhari and one of the closest members of
the president’s inner circle, a son of the Minister of State for
Petroleum Resources, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, a daughter of former Speaker
of the House of Representatives, Ghali Na’aba, also daughter of the
Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, a son of the Minister of
Internal Affairs, Abdurahman Danbazzau and at least 86 others.
The highly controversial recruitment, seen as peddling of influence,
first came to light a few weeks ago, but SaharaReporters just
exclusively obtained the names of the beneficiaries.
The leaking of the irregular hires by the CBN caused significant
embarrassment for the government and the bank. The CBN’s Director of
Human Resources, Chizoba Mojekwu, was reportedly redeployed as the
bank’s Director of Capacity Development and IT after CBN Governor,
Godwin Emefiele, accused her of being behind the leaking of the list.
However, a top official of the CBN told a correspondent that Mr.
Emefiele had arranged the hiring of relatives of top party leaders and
powerful government officials as a strategy for saving his job.
Even though the list obtained by SaharaReporters has 91 names,
sources at the CBN disclosed that the CBN Governor had started the
practice of using job offers to woo top government officials since
Buhari came into power on May 29, 2015. One source revealed that, in
September 2015, Mr. Emefiele had hired Claire Arase, a daughter of
Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase.
SaharaReporters learnt that the CBN often went to great lengths,
including tweaking the names of recruits, in order to hide the
identities of beneficiaries of politically motivated recruitment. Often
the CBN used the beneficiaries’ first names and their father’s middle
names to hide their real identities.
For instance, the bank listed Maryam Atiku as ‘Maryam Abubakar.’ In
another case, the bank entered the name of the son of Nigeria’s Minister
of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, as ‘Nagode Abdulrahman.’ In other
instances, the bank used the maiden names of hired persons instead of
their married names.
The recruitments are deemed irregular because the CBN failed to
advertise the vacancies in order to allow opportunities to all qualified
Nigerians to apply for the jobs. In addition, the bank’s ‘political’
recruitments did not follow principles of federal character set out for
employment by government agencies and other public institutions.
Jobs were just handed to the children of ministers in the current
administration,’ one bank official stated. The source added that many of
the new hires were asked to pick their department of choice after their
irregular employment was concluded.