Taraba State Government Sells ₦3,000 Form To 10,000 Youths Only To Employ 160

Some youths seeking to secure jobs in the Taraba State Civil Service have revealed how the state government extorted money from them through its civil service commission. A source told FIJ that thousands of youths seeking jobs in the 16 local governments in the state were extorted by the commission after they were asked to pay N3000 for forms.

This is despite having some budgetary funds allocated to the commission for recruitment purposes.

Meanwhile, after collecting N3000 for job forms from about 10,000 persons, only 160 applicants were finally selected.

The source said, “In February this year, the commission conducted a recruitment exercise where application forms were sold for N3000.”

He added that John Mamman, the commission’s chairman had announced via Taraba Television on April 2 that only 1,825 out of approximately 10,000 applicants would be recruited.

Meanwhile, the commission said it would start employment with 160 applicants among the 1,825 successful ones. But the youths are not sure if this would be continued after the first set of applicants were engaged on Monday.

“Every local government has 10 wards and we have 16 local governments in Taraba, which means they would be selecting one person from each ward, making 10 applicants from each local government area,” he added.

FIJ learned that the employment scheme had been generating criticisms since 2017, when applicants alleged barefaced extortion by the government. Their grievances led to a protest in 2021.

Mamman, the chairman of the commission, repeatedly defended the sale of forms, saying it was constitutional. He blamed politicians for contracting youths to bastardise the commission’s effort.