The Kano State government has accused the previous administration of Abdullahi Ganduje of employing unqualified individuals, including Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) students, into the civil service.
At the beginning of the current administration, some civil servants had their salaries suspended, and a committee was established to investigate and verify the previous administration’s employment.
The Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Abdullahi Baffa Bichi, stated in a press briefing that the committee discovered that mass employment was carried out by the previous administration without adhering to necessary guidelines and service regulations. The committee recommended that over 3,000 unqualified people be dismissed.
According to Bichi, the majority of the employment was not included in the approved 2023 budget, and many of those employed had neither applied nor expressed an interest in working.
Most of those employed did not undergo the necessary screening and recruitment interviews as required by the service regulations. Many of the employed had fake or suspicious certificates, and numerous non-indigenes were employed despite the high number of qualified unemployed indigenes. In reality, the employment did not consider the actual manpower requirements of the respective MDAs but was affected by the desire to financially burden the new administration.
Officers with higher qualifications were employed in junior cadres of the service, contrary to the needs of the MDAs, resulting in gross underemployment. Furthermore, a number of active students were hired, including junior secondary school, senior secondary school, and early-stage tertiary education students. Some people recruited were in the middle of their National Service Program, while others who were overaged or underage were confirmed to be employed and on the State payroll.
