How politicians hijacked ongoing recruitment in FAAN

Unions in the country’s aviation sector are gearing up for a showdown with the management of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) over what they termed an ongoing irregular recruitments into the aerodrome rescue and fire fighting services and aviation security departments in the organisation.

The findings by the unions indicated that the ongoing recruitment has been marred by irregularities as politicians have hijacked the exercise to force on FAAN more than half of people that turned out for the exercise.

In a petition signed by the Secretary General the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Comrade Ocheme Abah and made available to the Managing Director of FAAN, Captain Hamisu Yadudu on June 28,  2019, NUATE in particular condemned what it called scandalised level of disconnection from the public civil service rules and disregard for technical, safety and security requirements.

NUATE noted that the catchment areas provision in the civil service rule for lower cadre employees has been completely jettisoned while maximum age requirement for recruitment was  as well as technical and physical fitness have been abandoned.

This development is very sad and it has again showed the continuous determination of the political class to continue to use the sector as the guinea pig for them to test their strength at the expense of such a sensitive terrain devoid of dirty or local politics.

The question making the rounds among many is why the politicians have chosen a globally regulated sector like aviation where merit plays a prominent role to test their political strength?

In other words, critical issues such as recruitment particularly into the security and aerodrome rescue departments of any of the aviation agencies requires absolute merit and standard in view of the sensitive roles played by this set of workers.

• What is the big deal about redeployment?

At every moment, these selfish politicians who are only fighting for their personal interests are ever ready to force their family members on the aviation agencies during recruitments without following the rules hence; the future of the sector is hanging in the air.

The development has gone to confirm the general notion that these politicians careless about the plight of other Nigerians who are more than qualified to be employed into the agencies but lack the opportunities which the political class have restricted to their children and members of their families.

It is on record how these same politicians have politicised the entire sector by placing politics above core professionalism in a sector that is widely regulated in line with international safety rules and recommended practices.

One consequence of not allowing those in charge of recruitment to do their jobs is that with time, in a short time, the sector will be taken over by quacks whose genuine love for the job is in the doubt because they got the job on a platter of gold without going through due process.

The politicisation of the sector has continued to be its bane as witnessed in the imposition of family members of the political class including those unqualified on the sector. The worst is that when these green horns are forced to be employed, they place them above those they meet on ground with higher salaries which have lowered the morales of many workers.

With the state of insecurity around the country, it will amount to suicide for the politicians to prevent the recruitment agencies to carry out a background data checks on people to be recruited which may definitely be absent in this case because the candidates are members of the families of the ‘almighty’ politicians.

It is at this juncture that the Crucial Moment is joining other well meaning stakeholders led by NUATE to not only condemn the ongoing recruitment exercise in FAAN but hold the political class responsible for any untoward events that this illegality may cause in future.