Sahara Reporters


#CBNILLEGALHIRES: Claire Adesuwa Arase, daughter of IGP
Solomon Arase



aharaReporters has obtained a list of at least 91 people
tied to influential or highly placed Nigerians who were
recently offered juicy appointments by the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) in a hiring process that was highly
secretive.


The list of beneficiaries of the CBN’s job largesse include a
daughter of former Vice President Abubakar Atiku, a son of
Mamman Daura, a nephew of President Muhammadu Buhari and
one of the closest members of the president’s inner circle, a son
of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Emmanuel Ibe
Kachikwu, a daughter of former Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Ghali Na’aba, also daughter of of the Inspector
General of Police, Solomon Arase, a since of the Minister of
Internal Affairs, Abdurahman Danbazzau and at least 86 others.
The highly controversial recruitment, seen as peddling of
influence, first came to light a few weeks ago, but
SaharaReporters just exclusively obtained the names of the
beneficiaries.
The leaking of the irregular hires by the CBN caused significant
embarrassment for the government and the bank. The CBN’s
Director of Human Resources, Chizoba Mojekwu, was reportedly
redeployed as the bank’s Director of Capacity Development and IT
after CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, accused her of being
behind the leaking of the list.
However, a top official of the CBN told our correspondent that
Mr. Emefiele had arranged the hiring of relatives of top party
leaders and powerful government officials as a strategy for
saving his job.
Even though the list obtained by SaharaReporters has 91 names,
our sources at the CBN disclosed that the CBN Governor had
started the practice of using job offers to woo top government
officials since Mr. Buhari came into power on May 29, 2015. One
source revealed that, in September 2015, Mr. Emefiele had hired
Claire Arase, a daughter of Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police,
Solomon Arase.
SaharaReporters learnt that the CBN often went to great lengths,
including tweaking the names of recruits, in order to hide the
identities of beneficiaries of politically motivated recruitment.
Often the CBN used the beneficiaries’ first names and their
father’s middle names to hide their real identities. For instance,
the bank listed Maryam Atiku as “Maryam Abubakar.” In another
case, the bank entered the name of the son of Nigeria’s Minister
of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, as “Nagode Abdulrahman.” In
other instances, the bank used the maiden names of hired
persons instead of their married names.
The recruitments are deemed irregular because the CBN failed to
advertise the vacancies in order to allow opportunities to all
qualified Nigerians to apply for the jobs. In addition, the bank’s
“political” recruitments did not follow principles of federal
character set out for employment by government agencies and
other public institutions. “Jobs were just handed to the children of
ministers in the current administration,” one bank official stated.
The source added that many of the new hires were asked to pick
their department of choice after their irregular employment was
concluded.