A heated exchange ensued between the joint committee of the national assembly on employment and labour and the minister of state for labour and employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo, at a meeting held yesterday to discuss the progress of the 774, 000 jobs planned for Nigerians by the federal government under the Special Public Works Programme (SWP).
SWP is designed to hire 774,000 youths which the government had earmarked N52 billion to pay the 1,000 youths from each of the 774 local government areas N20, 000 per member for three months.
Those engaged are expected to do public works for the last quarter of the year.
At issue was the formation of the selection committee that will recruit the beneficiaries.
But the discussion went awry when the director general of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Mr. Nasir Ladan Argungu, was asked to explain the composition of the 20-member Keyamo committee handling the selection of beneficiaries.
Argungu, in his response said he could only account for eight statutory members of the committee, adding only the minister of state could speak on the remaining 12 members.
Not comfortable with such Ladan’s response, the committee inferred that he was not in control of the programmme.
Keyamo was asked for insight into how the 12 members were picked, the roles of representatives of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the recruitment and why a programme which budget is under the NDE is being hijacked by him.
Responding, Keyamo wondered if he was being accused of hijacking the programme from the NDE and whether the lawmakers were alleging the committee composition was lopsided.
As tension heightened, the co-chairman of the joint committee, Mr. Godiya Akwashiki, said the briefing would go into a closed door session and excused the media.
However, Keyamo protested saying since the questions were asked and allegations made in the full glare of the media, a closed session was not necessary.
He said his response should also be captured by the media.
“How can you expose corruption without the cameras? How can, how can you expose it? I must respond to what he said. You cannot say something and I won’t respond. It is wrong,” he said.
The minister’s outburst angered the lawmakers who asked that he apologise for his behavior, a request he declined insisting that he had done nothing wrong.
He said he had been denied the opportunity to respond to their allegations and threatened to walk out of the meeting.
The lawmakers responded in anger, shouting back at the minister to leave if he wanted.
“Go go, get out. Where is the sergeant-at-arms to walk him,” members of the panel yelled.
The lawmakers thereafter reached a resolution asking Keyamo to leave – which he obliged.
Speaking with journalists thereafter, the minister said what he was not allowed to say inside he would do so outside.
“The background to this is that a couple of days ago, they started mounting pressure on me that I must bring a list of those to select 1,000 persons per local government across the country for them to direct me as to what to do from state to state.
“The chairmen insisted I must come to them privately to be handed an instruction on what to do and how this programme would be done.
“I told them that it would amount to sharing the powers of the president. I can only be answerable for what I have done by the provisions of the constitution, but you cannot direct me.
I can’t explain in an executive session matters like this because it involves the 774 local government areas across the country.
“You cannot accuse me of a lopsided issue in the open and then want to go into a closed session.
“They can investigate the programme I can be coming here every day to explain but they cannot control it,” he said.
Also speaking with journalists later Akwashiki who presided over the joint committee told reporters after the botched session that Keyamo insulted them.
“We asked the minister of state to explain to us how far they have gone because we read on the pages of newspapers that a 20-man selection committee from each state was inaugurated.
“He said it was a tripartite committee set up by Mr. President that comprised eight ministries but we disagreed with him on that because we are lawmakers and we try to work always within the ambit of the law for the implementation of whatever we have for the Nigerian people.
“We said this money (N52billion) has been approved under the NDE. It is even in the budget. So for him to say it is eight ministries that are involved in this we disagree with him.
“If we did not get it right with the selection committee, I want to tell you that this programme is going to be a failure.
“How the minister arrived at the remaining 12 people is best known to him. The director general who happens to be the accounting officer of the agency did not know how he came about the selection of the 12 people.
“We cannot sit down and watch him. But because he claims he is a lawyer, he is trying to bring confusion.
“He is trying to turn us around. He is trying to make the whole system look like a busy-body saying that this is public hearing. This is not public hearing.
“At the end of the day, he tried to insult the lawmakers. He was trying to tell us the procedures of our sitting,” he said.
