The clamour for women inclusion and gender equity just received a boost as the age-old paradigm of appointing only men into the leadership of the Bonny Integrated Recruitment Centre (BIRC) has been exited with the appointment of two women into the committee to manage the centre.

Chairman of Bonny Local Government Area, Dame Anengi Dagogo-Wilcox, who put to rest that now effete paradigm, while inaugurating the committee on Monday, July 4, 2022 in Bonny, gave a clear mandate to the new BIRC leadership to be socially driven, responsive to yearnings of the people, and eschew racketeering.   

The new committee as inaugurated has Louis Banigo as Chairman, Gift Tobin, Vice Chairman; Victoria Jumbo, Secretary; Sodienye Pepple, Public Relations Officer; Markson Tolofari, Rita Benstowe, and Godwin Ukpong (Non-Indigene Representative), as members.

Also inaugurated was the Bonny Kingdom Employment Monitoring Team led by Tamuno Dan-Jumbo, Chairman; Dickson Paul Jumbo, Operations; Minaopuye Green, Austin Wilcox, Boma Goni Brown, Victor ibanigo, members.

The onboarding BIRC Secretary, Victoria Jumbo, who is a former Councillor representing Ward 6 in the Bonny Legislative Assembly, and her colleague, Rita Benstowe, are the first women to serve as Secretary and member, respectively, after Amaopuorubo Lucy Jamaica, who served as the first female Vice Chairman of the Centre since its inception. This is also the first time ever to have two women serve at the same time.

In a statement signed by her Deputy Press Secretary, Boma Waribor, the Bonny LGA Chief Executive tasked the new BIRC and Monitoring Committee leadership improve on the performance of their predecessors, be people-oriented and solution-driven in all employment related matters on the Island, adding that “the outgone Dagogo Jumbo led leadership did well but much more was expected from the new leadership”.

She called on them to “pick their calls, hear people out, make efforts to help, deploy diplomacy in handling complex issues, eschew job racketeering, and pay unbiased attention to non-indigenes that are resident in Bonny, while emphasizing that they were brought on-board to serve people and not to be served”.

In his acceptance speech, the BIRC Chairman, Louis Banigo said his social contract was to cater for the unemployed, underemployed and unemployable people in Bonny with a view to turning actions into results, while his Employment Monitoring Committee counterpart, Tamuno Dan-Jumbo promised not to disappoint the expectations associated with his appointment.