The Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission ( FCSC), Tunji Olaopa, has vowed to ensure transparency in recruitment into the nation’s civil service by advertising vacancies.
Olaopa spoke when the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Students’ Engagement, Asefon Sunday, paid him a courtesy call.
He said the commission has in place a mechanism for ensuring equity in recruitment. According to him, whenever there are vacancies and the commission receives a presidential approval for employment, the vacancies are distributed equally to all the commissioners who represent all the states in the commission.
He said the advertisement of the vacancies would give opportunities to all eligible youths. But he noted that the jobs in the civil service would not be enough for all qualified youths. He said the Federal Government is aware of this and thus some of its policies to create a better life for all the citizens.
Olaopa mentioned the student loan scheme as an example of such good policies of the President Bola Tinubu administration to cushion the effects of the nation’s economic challenges. He said the student loan policy is a way of incentivising the youths and weaning them off the ‘japa’ syndrome. He said the loan would give youths confidence in the country.
Responding to the point that jobs ought to be given to the brightest and best, Olaopa assured that the commission is taking particular cue from President Tinubu’s commitment to run a government of national competence. While the commission is determined to create a level playing field for all eligible candidates with full fidelity to the federal character policy and other diversity management practices, the best from each state will be given priority while entry level assessments will be far more rigorous than ever.
Recalling his early years in the late 1980s, Olaopa said: “The technocratic bent of policy work and the professionalism it created during the former military president Ibrahim Babangida era was a core inspiration that propelled me to play up my scholarship to reinforce my work as a bureaucrat and this is part of why I am still around about a decade after retirement from the federal civil service.”
Thus, for him, the future of the youths in Nigeria is bright.
He said the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Tinubu is meant to guarantee a bright future. He, however, acknowledged that some of the policies of the government might be painful initially.
Earlier, Asefon Sunday made a case for youths to be provided jobs so that they would no longer be fixated on travelling overseas for greener pastures. He said employment of youths after graduation from the university would enable them to pay their student loans which the Federal Government has newly established. He urged that there should be transparency in recruitment so that competent people would get the jobs.