The Bonny Integrated Recruitment Center (BIRC) says it remains accountable to the authorities that established it and the people it was created to serve in discharge of its responsibility with regards to managing employment opportunities in Bonny Local Government Area of Rivers State.

Chairman of the BIRC, Louis Banigo Jr., who said this on Wednesday, September 7, 2022 in Bonny, Rivers State in a statement he personally signed and made exclusively available to Kristina Reports, asserted that the BIRC would continue to be fair and balanced in the discharge of its established functions and remain accountable to the people.

He decried the attacks on the Center in recent times, describing them as “unnecessary”, and the allegations of marginalization against Finima Community as “unfounded” and “empty accusations”, calling for a “ceasefire” from all stakeholders and interested parties.   

“The Bonny Integrated Recruitment Center (BIRC) has been under persistent and unnecessary incursion over the past months, over claims of unfounded system impropriety and misgivings against Finima Community…we call for the ceasefire of all attacks.”

The BIRC Chairman stated that employment management and regulation remains a function of government, informing that the Bonny Integrated Recruitment Center is the only legitimate and recognized agency established by the authorities to administer all matters related to employment in Bonny LGA.

“Employment management and regulation is 100% the function of Government.”

“There is one and only one legitimate agency established and recognized by constituted authorities in Bonny Local Government Area to oversee and administer all matters relating to employment in Bonny Local Government Area.”

“The interest and effort of any individual or group of people under any guise or nomenclature (community, skills association, youth organization, etc.) to wield authority, manage employment or discharge any functions of the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria without legislation shall only be an effort in futility, only to cause disorder and disaffection amongst the citizenry.”

Banigo further informed that the BIRC is a creation of the government and it is saddled with implementing the 2006 resolution between the Rivers State Government and Bonny stakeholders on 60/40% ratio of employment opportunities between Bonny and Finima, stressing that this has been meticulously implemented by the BIRC in a transparent, accountable and fair manner.

“It is public records that on the 23rd of February 2006, a resolution was reached in a Bonny Stakeholders Meeting held before a former Deputy Governor of Rivers State, His Excellency, Sir Gabriel Toby.”

“The resolution established an employment ratio that gave Finima Community employment quota of 40% and 60% to the rest Communities in Bonny LGA; Bonny Integrated Recruitment Centre has maintained and implemented this pact meticulously for transparency, accountability and administrative ease.”

“These noble ambassadors partake, supervise and receive records of employment and quotas due them in accordance with the subsisting employment sharing ratio.”

He consequently dismissed any attempt to have a parallel or multiple institutions to administer employment related matters in Bonny LGA, maintaining that any such misnomer that existed in the past can no longer continue given that there is now a properly constituted body, adding that “the days of communities, youth organisations and skill associations exercising the authority and functions of government are over”.  

“I believe that the explanation above makes it easy to understand that there won’t be multiple employment administrators/agencies in Bonny Local Government Area, besides the Bonny Integrated Recruitment Centre (BIRC).”

“Therefore, we call for the ceasefire of all attacks and clandestine manoeuvring to become a parallel employment administrator. Misnomers of this sort may have happened in the past in different communities where economic opportunities are present, as a people of one LGA and under one Government; we need to understand and embrace the reality that the days of communities, youth organisations and skill associations exercising the authority and functions of Government are over.”

Recently, there have been furore over how employment opportunities accruing to the Buoye Omuso Brown Major House of Finima are being managed with some stakeholders insisting that the subsisting template where the Finima Youth Congress (FYC) handled the job slots for the entire Finima and distributed to the Attoni, Brown and Tobin Houses should be allowed to continue.

Another set of stakeholders, however, countered that the template where each of the 35 chieftaincy houses in Bonny Kingdom directly access their slots through their respective representatives should be the norm.

Checks by Kristina Reports reveal that representation for the Buoye Omuso Brown Major House (BOBH) was at the root of the controversy due to the contention for power between the two Chiefs in the House, Aseme Alabo Dagogo Lambert Brown, Kongo XVII, and Se-Alabo Evans Clement Buoye Brown, Omuso IX, who are both in court to determine who will stay on and who will step down.