About 400 applicants that participated in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Experienced Hire recruitment exercise in 2019 have petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari, to prevail on the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari, to immediately release the final outcome of the exercise without further delay.

The group, under the name NNPC 2019 EHs, in an open letter , signed by its President and General Secretary, Messers Fola Shafiu Tunde and Hadi Maimuna alleged that only few months ago, information filtered in to the public space from credible sources that the management of the corporation may have concluded plans and had, in fact, begun to engage their kith and kin including children of influential elites to replace about 400 positions to be filled by these already assessed Experienced Hire candidates. But, when contacted, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Kenny Obateru, said in a telephone interview that the allegation of swapping by the Experienced Hires applicants were unfounded.

Rather, he said what the NNPC management did was to fill the vacancies with NNPC personnel who are already in the system and are qualified, rather than recruiting fresh ones from outside the system.

He explained that the process started by the erstwhile regime, saying when the current administration came on board, it discovered that many of the vacancies could be filled by its exiting personnel, some of whom had spent a period of 20 years. He added that for the positions that they could not get a qualified personnel from within, they would now select from the Experienced Hires applicants that are qualified to man such positions. The group lamented that the frustration and disappointment has no doubt been exasperating and the affected candidates who had high hopes in contributing to the nation’s development refuse to come to terms that this is happening in the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and as the Minister of Petroleum under whose purview the NNPC is being managed.

‘‘These young Nigerian professionals that constitute the Experienced Hire component of the yet-to-be-completed 2019 NNPC recruitment have resorted to social media for the clamour. Twitter has been agog with #NNPC2019EHCLOSURE generating more than 10,000 tweets already and severally tagging @MBuhari,@ProfOsinbajo,@HETimipreSylva,@DrAhmadLawan, @femigbaja,@mkkyari, @NNPCgroup among others on this lingering 2019 recruitment for their intervention over the continued withholding of the interview outcome for the Experienced Hires. (Daily Sun)

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