The Bonny Integrated Recruitment Centre (BIRC) should be restructured with the 34 chieftaincy houses in Bonny Kingdom represented in order to optimize its operations, the Youth Leader of Longjohn Chieftaincy House, Iyeopu Longjohn has said.  

Longjohn, who said this recently when he appeared on Community Dialogue, a special talkshow hosted by Kristina Television in Bonny, Rivers State, stated that such move would make the BIRC more beneficial to the people.

“I think it’s time we need to restructure the system to get it right. For me, I will appeal that the structures should be changed so that we have it right.”

“I am appealing that the Chiefs Council with the Local Government Chairman with the Amanyanabo, our great traditional ruler, with due respect to him, should let the change occur.”

“They should look at reshuffling the employment bureau structure by making all the 34 Chieftaincy Houses part of that Bureau. By so doing everybody will be part of it.”

He regretted that the purpose of the Centre was no longer being fulfilled as employment opportunities were becoming elusive by the day, noting that youths of the area have been expressing concerns that the jobs were unavailable while workers were undergoing induction on a daily basis at the worksite.

“First of all, I feel that the structure system is not actually right. The structure of the Employment Bureau, the BIRC is not actually right because for the past years we have a system that is working and this system has actually failed the unemployed youths in terms of employment to Bonny people.”

“It is painful that every day I walk into the site, we, most times, see and hear a lot of our persons and youths come to complain that people are going for induction?

“Who is clearing the non-indigenes that are not resident for the Train 7 project? Even the non-indigenes who do business or that have stayed in the Kingdom for years don’t even have opportunity for employment.”

He accused the companies on the Train 7 project and the BIRC of colluding to importing people from outside Bonny Island to come take the employment opportunities therein thus denying the residents and indigenes of such opportunities.

“These companies bring people from outside and give them work and accommodation in the JV Camp or Workers Village. The BIRC give clearance to this companies and the BIRC is to make sure that our people gain employment in this company. But this is not the real case.”

On insinuations in certain quarters that youth leaders in Bonny Kingdom were involved in job racketeering, the Longjohn House Youth Leader asserted that he was not involved in such malfeasance, acknowledging however that he cannot speak for the youth leaders of other Houses.