The Ministry of Labour, Employment, and Productivity on Wednesday rejected the resolution of both the Senate and the House of Representatives calling for the removal of its Minister of State, Festus Keyamo, from supervising the recruitment of 774,000 Nigerians for the Special Public Works programme.
The rejection of the resolution was made known by the ministry’s Deputy Director, Press and Public Relations, Mr. Charles Akpan, while speaking to journalists in Abuja, said “nothing has changed.”
The two legislative arms in their separate session on Tuesday had asked President Muhammadu Buhari to stop Keyamo from supervising the recruitment process of the 774,000 Nigerians.
Last month, the lawmakers and Keyamo clashed when the minister was walked out of the sitting of the Senate committee investigating the special works programme. He was being accused of raising his voice against the lawmakers.
Later on, July 1, the National Assembly said it had stopped the planned recruitment, arguing that Keyamo had hijacked the process from the National Directorate of Employment.
On the contrary, Keyamo on July 14, said he had got the approval of the President to supervise the recruitment.
The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan and the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, after that together met with President Buhari over the matter.
Following the meeting, the Senior Special Assistance on Media and Publicity to President Buhari, Garba Shehu, in a stated said the President had warned his appointees that he would not accept any act of disrespect to the National Assembly.
On Tuesday, the National Assembly asked the Minister of Labour, Employment and Productivity, Senator Chris Ngige, to supervise the recruitment process.
In the Senate, the Chairman of the Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Opeyemi Bamidele raised the motion through a point of order.
He said Keyamo erred the law by taking over an assignment that was constitutionally assigned to the NDE through the Revised 2020 Appropriation Act.
He added that the Federal Parliament approved N52bn for the NDE to execute the exercise but lamented that the labour ministry, through Keyamo, had hijacked it.
However, Akpan told journalists that the recruitment process would be supervised by Keyamo, adding that office of the NDE operates under him.
He said, “The special works programme is with the NDE, but our ministry is the supervising ministry for NDE and because of that, we monitor their activities and the ministry of labour was given the responsibility to handle that assignment, and it is under the supervision of the minister of state. So, whatever the directorate does, it would report to the minister of state; so, nothing has changed.”
