CBN reacts to reports that they are illegally recruiting children of Atiku, Arase, others

Thursday March 17, 2016

The Central Bank of Nigeria has reacted to the public outcry of an illegal recruitment exercise allegedly carried out by the apex bank. Sahara Reporters on Tuesday March 15th, reported that the bank employed the children of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, IGP Solomon Arase and others to some key positions in the bank.

The list of beneficiaries of the CBN’s secret job recruitment includes a daughter of former Vice President Abubakar Atiku, a son of Mamman Daura, a nephew of President 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 of the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, a son of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Abdurahman Danbazzau and at least 86 others.

This report has sparked up public outcry as many believe that the bank should have publicized the job openings for many other people to to apply.

However in an interview with Premium Times yesterday March 16th, the CBN’s acting Director of Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor said the bank did nothing illegal or wrong in hiring without advertising.

“In the last two years, we have had cause to recruit specialists, and what the law says is that if we are going for that kind of recruitment we should apply for waiver, so that we can do targeted recruitment" He said the bank obtained waiver from the Federal Character Commission. “The other issue is that there are states that are not well represented (in the CBN), and in this case we focus on those states to recruits people of certain classes that we used to cover the shortfall in those states,”he said