Listening to couple of graduates
narrating their ordeal in the hands of the management of the federal government
Subsidy Re-Investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) in Lagos state
recently, one will definitely be moved into tears going by the trauma and
hardship these innocent job seekers were made to go through in the last two
years; yet, none of them have been given employment letter let alone salary.
The management of SURE-P
in Lagos led by a politician named Alhaji Abdul Razak Rafiu Otto has made life miserable for the
graduates who had high hopes of getting employed through the President Jonathan’s
SURE-P initiative, is alleged to have been extorting money from applicants
through different means for almost 2 years.
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| Alhaji Abdul Razak Rafiu Otto |
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| Prez. Jonathan |
Many road users would have definitely witnessed
thousands of job seekers besieging an office by the old Toll Gate close to 7up
Bottling Company along the Lagos Ibadan Expressway on daily basis. These job
seekers converge every day to either process their employment or training under
the SURE-P/FERMA programme. But it will
interest the public to know that none of the thousands of heads seen at the
SURE-P office has been given a dime for almost 2years; the expected training
allowance or salary has become a mirage of sort.
Investigation revealed
that top management staff of SURE-P has been selling all free items meant for
processing application to the almost 50,000 applicants. The female amongst them
are said to be losing in two ways; apart from coughing out their money, they
are turned to sex slaves just because of the promise that their cases will be
facilitated swiftly than their male counterpart.
According to some of the applicants approached
by cityrovers.blogspot.com, it has become a common knowledge that what SURE-P
means to them is nothing but SCAM. One of the people who spoke with cityrovers.blogspot.com,
Kehinde Akeem says “ it’s a pity we are being exploited because of our situation,
I have paid about N180,000 in almost two
years; some of us paid about N300, 000 in total. The money we first paid was
N35,000 for Federal Road Committee on Surveillance Patrol Against
Road Abuse (FERSPARA), we also bought another from SURE-P for N25,000. We
bought Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi FIIRO for N10,000.
Incidentally all these forms were meant to be for free, in fact its written
boldly on the forms that ‘Not For Sale’, but because we don’t have choice since
we were assured of getting the job, we obliged anything they tell us.”
Another applicant, Biola who corroborated
claims by his colleagues says, “ I made my wife to close-up her shop because of
the money I collect from her regularly to pay all the fees we are being
charged; at present my wife is at home now and we strive to live as a family.They
promised us jobs, that is why we pay for everything; we paid, N37,500 for
SURE-P kits, N2,500 for Vest and Cap, N5,000 for Medical, N10,000 for Identity
Card. We did two photo capturing 1,000 for each, in fact there is nothing that
we didn’t pay for; I can’t even remember some of them again. Many of the females
among us are being messed up daily; they sleep with them and cajole them with empty
promises of securing jobs for them, it’s close to two years now and nobody has
been given employment letter”
We gathered further that one of the top managers
at SURE-P usually called Alhaji was caught pants-down with one of the applicants
inside the office. The discovery shook the establishment that the management
had no choice but to show Alhaji the exit door.
Some of the applicants disclosed that
sometimes ago, they had considered staging
a protest, but they had to fall in line when a top shot in SURE-P warned them to desist from such act because
different weapons were alleged to have been kept inside the offices in case of
such uprising.
In
another development, cityrovers.blogspot.com gathered that, the management have
made sure all the applicants have been given Permanent Voters Card (PVC) for
the forth coming elections and their phone numbers written down to make sure
they are persuaded to vote for PDP.
They have equally been
told to go home, that they can only be employed if President Goodluck Jonathan
is re-elected.
Interestingly, if
Gen.(rtd) Mohammadu Buhari emerges as
the new Head Of Nigerian States, it means the 50,000 Lagosians that have been made to cough out huge amount
will not only lose the money forever but also their hopes will be dashed
completely. This reality is because, it has been spelt out to them that they
will be employed only if Jonathan retains his seat.
When we tried to reach out
to Head of the SURE-P programme in the State Rafiu Otto, he didn’t respond to
our call or even reply text messages.
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