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President Olusegun Obasanjo said yesterday in Abuja that the Federal Government would always insist on merit in the recruitment....
President Olusegun Obasanjo said yesterday in Abuja that the Federal Government would always insist on merit in the recruitment of personnel into all its departments.
Speaking at the third forum of the presidential council on the development of the Niger Delta, Obasanjo said that the council members would not take over the powers of government
establishments in matters of recruitment.
'We will have action but we are not going to short-circuit; we want the best and we are not going to short-circuit the process," he added.
He said that in the area of recruitment, ``the level of politicisation will be minimal,"' adding: 'If you are a member of Council only to determine who goes where, you have missed the road".
Obasanjo spoke in response to an allegation by an observer at the meeting that some of the pronouncements on recruitment into the armed forces and the police that were reported to the meeting were not actually carried out.
He said that it was wrong for council members to assume that they could take over the powers of the various government outfits in matters of recruitment.
``The NNPC was right to use consultants to fish out the best 1,000 from 100,000 applications that it had received,'' the president added.
The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Martin Luther Agwai, the NNPC Chief Executive
Officer, Funso Kupolokun and the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Sunday Ehindero, reported to council on efforts made to recruit personnel from the states in the Niger Delta.
Giving highlights of federal government's interventions in the education sector in the oil-rich region, Obasanjo said that work was going on at the technical school in Bonny.
He also said that a lot of progress had been made on the planned Federal Polytechnic in Bayelsa.
He directed that work on the conversion of the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effurum, into a degree awarding institution should be hastened and the university council inaugurated by the next quarter.
On power supply, the president said that progress was being made on the new power plants in the area.
Obasanjo directed the power and steel minister to formally write governors on the high demand for compensations on ongoing projects in the Niger Delta.
He also said that Bayelsa was now fully connected to the national grid, but warned that electricity would no longer be supplied free but would henceforth be sold to the state government.