CBN responds to rumours that they are illicitly employing children of Atiku, Arase, others

The Central Bank of Nigeria has responded to the public clamour of an illicit employment exercise purportedly carried out by the apex bank. Sahara Reporters on Tuesday March 15, 2016 stated 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 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 clamour 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 on March 16, 2016 the CBN’s acting Director of Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor said the bank did nothing illicit or wrong in employing 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