Following the release of the list of new employees at the State Board of Internal Revenue Service, BIRS, the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Benue state has accused Gov. Samuel Ortom of nepotism.
The APC said Ortom’s commando recruitment at the Board was not just nepotistic but a geometric progression from bad leadership to worse.
A press statement signed on behalf of the party by the Acting State Publicity Secretary, James Ornguga, said that the party found it strange that despite appointing a Chairman to the board that received endless applause, the governor went ahead to usurp the powers of management and hastily announced a recruitment list without any form of interview or aptitude test in the 21st century.
The party said the tone of the press release announcing the recruitment clearly showed it may have been signed under duress, as it violates the standard administrative protocol for such announcements.
“More worrisome is the fact that half of the candidates are allegedly from the governor’s own local government of Guma while a few other lucky persons recommended by his political associates narrowly made the list.”
The party stated that with this sham of a recruitment already in place at a board that should be generating revenue for the state, “we can tell the end from the beginning that no serious output can come from it save a clandestine political settlement.
The party said, “We are aware of evidently noticeable political schemes trying to muzzle the new BIRS Chairman, Mr. Andrew Ayabam to urgently take the shine off him as “Mr. Employment” for suspected intentions.
“To the APC, this is the right time for Ayabam to resign his appointment or be made to carry the tag of a “Wheelbarrow Appointee” in the near future.”
The APC called on eminently qualified Benue applicants “who were scammed and are still applying blindly online while a lucky group has already been penciled and employed”, to take heart and pray for the APC Governorship Candidate, Mr Emmanuel Jime to win at the court and salvage the state from the manacles of excruciating unemployment and glaring nepotism.
