Against the backdrop of pervasive trading of job slots by criminal elements within the employment management system in Bonny Local Government Area, Chairman of the LGA, Dame Anengi Wilcox has warned of dire consequences for those bent on sustaining the practice.

Dame Wilcox issued this warning on Monday, May 8, 2023 when she had an interface meeting with officials of the Bonny Integrated Recruitment Centre (BIRC), trade unions, and other workers’ associations in her office in Bonny.

A statement by her Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Henry Hart, disclosed that she enjoined the various stakeholder in the employment system in Bonny LGA to shun acts associated with the sale of job chances and other unwholesome acts.

She highlighted the challenge of an increasing number of unemployed residents in the area, lamenting that though these are able-bodied, qualified and ready individuals, they were being denied the opportunity to work and earn a living for themselves and their families, thus exacerbating the security situation in the area.

The statement said that skilled labour unions such as the Bonny Oil and Gas, Heavy/Light Equipment Operators Association, and Earthmoving Equipment Operators Association, as well as the Bonny Integrated Recruitment Centre (BIRC), were among attendees at the meeting.

The Bonny LGA chief executive asserted that job chances meant for Bonny people should not be an article of merchandise, advising the unions to harmonise and consider the possibility of collapsing into one in order to have a stronger voice in collective bargaining and other industrial related issues.

In their separate remarks, Vice Chairman of the BIRC, Adango Tobin, and Team Lead for the visiting trade unions, Lloyd Banigo expressed gratitude for the productive interactive meeting, pledging to be consistent with the spirit of their respective roles.

Checks by Kristina Reports indicate a worsening dimension to the menace of job slots sales, with a growing backlash of thousands of youths in the area not being employed and constituting an existential and ongoing threat to security.

A security official, who preferred anonymity, told Kristina Reports that “you know that a hungry man is an angry man, and several of these young men and women are jobless. Are we surprised that shops are being broken into in the night almost on a daily basis?”

“Are we surprised that cultism and drug abuse and peddling is becoming lucrative by the day? How can several young men and women spend all these years in the university, graduate with degrees, come back and go learn basic skills and all that and yet no job?”

“No job for them as graduates, no jobs for them as skilled labour, no jobs for them as indigenes and residents, imagine the situation we have to deal with. Of course, not being employed gainfully render them as threats, security threats and we have to be on our toes every day to ensure nothing goes wrong.”

Unconfirmed sources hint Kristina Reports that a former Chairman of the BIRC (names withheld) was recently sacked when he was caught in the act of selling job chances. Our sources say the said individual had a job racketeering office in Port Harcourt where he had people carrying out the nefarious deals for him until he was busted by a certain unnamed government official.

Just recently, another job racketeering joint is said to be ongoing close to St. John’s Bus Stop along Iwofe Road at Rumuolumeni in Port Harcourt where job seekers are induced with mouthwatering offers to make them part with their money.

Our sources say the individual, who charges his victims between N30,000 and N40,000 per slot, claims to be a consultant for the Train 7 implementers, Saipem Contracting Nigeria Limited and Daewoo Engineering and Procurement Nigeria Limited.

A visit by our Correspondent to the place yielded no results yet as the person suspected to be in charge of the place was tipped off on our visit and hurriedly shut down the place.  

Kristina Reports has reached out to his chieftaincy house on his alleged activities but was yet to get a feedback as at the time of this report.

Global statistics show that job racketeering remains an ongoing and debilitating drawback to efforts by government and other stakeholders to create employment opportunities for citizens.

In the case of Bonny LGA, the intrinsic advantages of having the presence of Nigeria’s economic headliners, Nigeria LNG, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, TotalEnergies, BelemaOil, Daewoo, Saipem and several others on the island have been heavily discounted by the job racketeering menace.

This disturbing situation must have prompted this engagement by the Bonny LGA Chairman with the BIRC, trade unions and other stakeholders.