The Minister of State, Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, who was in a word battle with the Inter-Ministerial Committee on the Extended Special Public Works, on Tuesday, June 30, has threatened to resign his appointment if slots meant for the 774,000 jobs approved by President Muhammadu Buhari for ordinary Nigerians are hijacked by politicians. 

There was a misunderstanding at the sitting of the Joint Committee on Labour of both the Senate and the House of Representatives when the Minister refused to bow to the request of the lawmakers, who requested that he submit the program to them privately before taking certain steps. 

The committee affirmed that they should be carried along as they ought to have an input on how the programme should be implemented. 

The Minister queried the interference of the committee as he said they want to hijack the programme as to influence the selection of beneficiaries of the scheme. 

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He insisted that he would not surrender the programme to the Committee, saying "their powers under the constitution does not extend to that."

Recall, Eons Intelligence, on May 30, reported that the Federal Government promised to pay 1,000 unemployed youths in Nigeria, especially in rural areas, a sum of N20, 000 monthly for engaging in community services.

Festus Kiyamo said that the youths would be engaged in the clearing of drainages, sweeping markets, road maintenance, traffic control, and cleaning of public infrastructures like health centres and schools.

The pilot scheme, under the special public works programme of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), was approved to be implemented in five Local Government Areas in eight States which include: Adamawa, Borno, Ebony, Edo, Ekiti, Jigawa, Katsina, and Kwara. 

Speaking further, Keyamo said the programme was designed to mitigate unemployment in rural areas through short term engagement of 1,000 unemployed youths per local Government Area for a period of three months. 

He emphasized that the programme should be built on transparency without the influence of political parties. 

He said the Committees do not have powers to pass binding Resolution, adding that they can only make recommendations to plenary. 

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Keyamo said" This is not for PDP or APC, who will want slot from my local government because I am a politician. But I assure you it will not happen.

"All my life, I have fought for good governance and constitutional democracy. I will not come into Government and be intimidated to abandon those principles. 

I will rather leave this assignment, if Mr President so directs than compromise the jobs meant for ordinary Nigerians who have no Godfathers or who are not affiliated to any political party," Keyamo threatened.

The scheme, which was estimated for N46.4 bn, is expected to begin in October.