774,000 Jobs: Only NDE is Empowered to Execute Programme, 20-Man State C’tee Null and Void-NDE DG, Ladan By Moses Idika

774,000 Jobs: Only NDE is Empowered to Execute Programme, 20-Man State C’tee Null and Void-NDE DG, Ladan
By Moses Idika

The Director General of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Dr. Nasiru Mohammed Ladan has insisted that only the NDE was statutorily empowered to execute the 774,000 job programme of the Federal Government and not Minister of State for Labour, Employment and Productivity, Festus Keyamo.
The position of the Dr. Ladan follows the insistence of Keyamo’s position that as the Minister in charge of the NDE, he was the rightful person to administer the programmes because he was the boss. Keyamo had told journalists in the National Assembly on Tuesday that “the buck stops on my table.”
However, while speaking with journalists after a meeting with both the President of the Senate, Dr,. Ahmad Lawan and the National Assembly Joint Committee on Labour and Employment, the DG of NDE stated that the law empowers the NDE to “plan and execute the programme.”
“A s far as I am concerned as the DG of NDE, the money appropriated by the National Assembly and by the powers given to us by the National Assembly I, Mohammed Ladan as the DG of NDE owe the prior arrangement as far as this work is concerned,” the NDE boss stated.
Dr. Ladan revealed that the Minister over reached himself when he allegedly appointed a 20-man selection committee without involving the NDE that is statutorily empowered to execute the programmes.
Ladan said: “the 20-man state selection Committee is null and void. It is null and void. In due course we are going to look at it. We have done this before. We have done pilot studies in 8 states we did it successfully. It was based on the success recorded that Mr. President decided to make it all over the federation, covering all the 774 local governments. We are used to this, we have ways of doing this thing and we are going to do justice to all Nigerians.”
On the expected role of Keyamo as the supervising Minister in charge of the NDE, Ladan said:
“He is my supervising Minister, his role is to supervise, not to implement and execute. I am telling you in confidence, I said it before and I am now saying it again, the 20 man state selection committee I saw it in social media like some of you saw it and as the Chief Executive of that agency, is there justice in it?
“My duty is to inform him for his own information, but the issue of planning and execution is basically the work of the NDE. Like I said before, we have done it before and we are going to do it successfully.
While briefing the joint committee on Tuesday, the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan stated that the National Assembly appropriated the N52billion earmarked for the take-off of the programme for the NDE and it was “only NDE and not the ministry that will execute the programme” as that was the position of the law.
In his remark, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Labour and Employment, Sen. Godiya Akwashiki also re-echoed the position of the President of the Senate and thereafter mandated the NDE to go back and plan and bring its plan to the Senate on Monday July 13, 2020 for approval of the National Assembly in order for the programme to take off.
The 774,000 jobs programme announced by the federal government as part of the government’s palliative programme to cushion the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on Nigerians have been mired in controversy primarily due to the antagonistic posture adopted by Minister of State for Labour, Employment and Productivity, Festus Keyamo who told members of the National Assembly that he was not going to be dictated to on how to implement the programme.
Keyamo insists that he was only answerable to the president and not the National Assembly.