The Nigerian Senate was torn apart on Monday during the screening of Festus Keyamo, a ministerial nominee from Delta State, leading to a chaotic session.
It all started after Keyamo’s presentation when Senator Darlington Nwokocha (representing Abia Central) moved a motion that the nominee be stepped down having refused to appear before the 9th National Assembly to answer questions regarding his activities as then Minister of State for Labour and Employment, especially the 774 LGA Public Works Programme.
The motion was seconded by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe (Abia South).
It took Senate President Godswill Akpabio much time and effort to restore order, after which the Senate decided to suspend Keyamo’s screening and go into an Executive Session.
Recall that sometime in October 2019, then President Muhammadu Buhari had approved a Pilot Special Public Works Programme in the Rural Areas which was domiciled in the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) for implementation.
The Special Public Works Programme in the Rural Areas is an employment-intensive technique acquired and adapted by the NDE from one of the capacity-building collaborations with the International Labour Organisation (ILO). It was designed to mitigate lack of job opportunities in the rural areas through a short-term engagement of 1,000 unemployed persons per local government area for a period of three months.
It is a dry season/off season transient job programme and was originally designed for the rehabilitation/maintenance of public and social infrastructure. Participants were to be paid an allowance of N20,000 monthly and were to be recruited largely from the pool of unskilled persons ordinarily resident in those rural areas.
