IF there was any scintilla of doubt that the civil/public service in the country is a cesspit of corruption, the recent scandalous revelations of horrendous sleaze at the Federal Character Commission (FCC) have cleared such doubt. The sordid state of affairs at the commission came to light from the hearing on the activities of the FCC at the House of Representatives in Abuja. Officials of the commission allegedly took bribes from job seekers, and this was backed up with documentary evidence. A former Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) desk officer at the Commission, Haruna Kolo, actually owned up to the allegation of collecting money from job seekers in exchange for employment. He admitted to receiving over N75 million from desperate job seekers allegedly on the instructions of the chairman of the FCC, and that the proceeds of corruption were paid in cash into the bank account of the chairman. The revelations are so mind-boggling as to disturb all people of goodwill regarding the perverse manner in which the affairs of the country are being administered by some morally depraved civil and public servants. It is terrible.

There are several grounds on which the alleged corruption at the FCC constitutes a veritable source of worry, but suffice it to mention two major ones. One, jobless persons seeking to gain government employment but having to bribe public officials who are their would-be colleagues have been wittingly or unwittingly introduced to a perilous culture of corruption. And after taking up their purchased employments, as it were, they, too, may look for avenues within the system or create some to recoup their ‘investments’; or at best wait for the right time to fleece job seekers and/or other patrons of government services, thus perpetuating and engendering a culture of impropriety and sleaze in the service. Two, the fact that FCC, a regulatory agency, is enmeshed in this kind of scandal can only mean that corruption is an endemic issue in the public service.

For how could an agency set up to ensure sanity in the recruitment into and staffing of other agencies of government turn out to be the highest repository of impropriety with respect to the same issue of recruitment? How could civil and public officials who are lucky to be in government employ take bribes from job seekers in exchange for government employment without regard for their station in life? It is safe, and sadly so, to surmise that the primary consideration of these aberrant officials in the performance of their duties is pecuniary gain, and that may have inexorably taken precedence over the FCC’s crucial role of ensuring federal character and national balance in federal recruitments. In other words, there is no guarantee that the alleged shameless activities of these officials have not vitiated the raison d’etre for the establishment of FCC in the first place. Rather than helping to ensure sanity and inject the pursuit of due processes and adherence to rules into the affairs of government agencies, the FCC seems to have been the signification of all that is wrong with the public service in the country.

Officials selling recruitment slots and vacancies and pocketing humongous bribes on account of their critical placement in the recruitment processes, and more significantly because the chronic unemployment and underemployment situation in the land, is pure evil. If the government is genuinely disposed to overcoming the scourge of corruption in this country, the recent revelations are potent enough to serve as the platform for a turning point and positive change. Unfortunately, the country has gone through this route before, whereby the supposed custodians of moral authority and those charged with the responsibility of upholding and enforcing fidelity in the public service, and indeed in the society at large, turned around to be the breachers-in-chief of the law and moral codes. For instance, the immediate past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, is currently being tried in court on corruption allegations. Also, the Chairman of Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, is currently in the custody of the Department of Security Service (DSS) where he is being grilled ostensibly over breaches of the law in the line of duty. Indeed, all his predecessors in office were sacked in similar ignominious circumstances, but sadly, no useful lessons would appear to have been learnt by all parties. And it would be presumptuous to think that the recent FCC incident will be any different.

Nonetheless, we urge the relevant security agency to pick up the gauntlet from where the House of Representatives may stop its investigation and ensure that further painstaking inquiry is launched into the alleged employment racketeering at the FCC. The culprits should be severely sanctioned to serve as a deterrent to those who may be planning to tread the same ignoble path. It is bad enough that the country’s economy has been run in such a way that its employment absorptive capacity has become gravely limited, but it smacks of insensitivity and wickedness that some unscrupulous and unconscionable public officials are latching onto the plight of job seekers in the land to gain access to filthy lucre through employment racketeering. We enjoin the government to respond swiftly to this sordid state of affairs and institute remedial actions to stymie the ugly development permanently.

Update news