By Peter Duru, Makurdi

The Middle Belt Forum, MBF, has blamed the Nigerian system for creating the leeway for unscrupulous persons to trade off job slots and engage in employment racketeering to the detriment of others.

The National President of MBF, Dr. Bitrus Pogu who Thursday was reacting to the recent allegation of racketeering in the Nigeria Army recruitment where non-indigenes were said to be taking up slots of other indigenes, insisted that the unhealthy development was a self-inflicted systemic problem.

According to him, “This problem was brought about by what we call ‘quota system.’ It is a problem that we created for ourselves.

“While we allowed free flow and lots of things to go unattended to; in some areas because of interest quota system is strictly introduced. And because of that, somebody is qualified but because of quota system, they will not allow the person to gain employment. And there are still spaces left out there.

“So naturally people who cannot fill their quota because they do not have qualified people, do sell or trade their slot to other Nigerians who even after filling their quota still have so many qualified people who could be employed.

“It is a Nigerian problem. While we say okay let us look for competence, in some areas because of interest quota system is strictly introduced. And as a result of that somebody is qualified but because of quota system they will not allow the person to gain employment, and there are still spaces left out there.

“So naturally people who cannot fill their quota because they do not have qualified people, do sell or trade their slots to other Nigerians who even after filling their quota still have many qualified people who could be employed.

“So it is a Nigerian problem. While we say okay let us look for competence. In some areas because competent people are not readily available we still introduce a quota system. The quota system either lowers the standard for those who do not have the standard to be employed or sells their quota to others who are ready to pay.

“It is no doubt a systematic problem because we have lots of problems in the country that we have not been able to address.

“Rather than saying gentlemen this is a professional job we do not have place for mediocre irrespective of what quota means, let’s have competent hands to handle it; in other areas we can do the quota thing. Nigerians refused and in the end he who has the money pays for it.

“So it is an unfortunate development, we have to rejig our system and we have to look again at what is wrong and address these wrongs as early as possible because the whole country pays for it.

“If somebody is employed just because he has to fill a quota and he is not competent, then we have a problem on our hands. So that is the issue and we have to pray that we have a bold President in place who will say gentle men some jobs require expertise, that require competence for such jobs we cannot sacrifice competence on a platter of quota system.

“That might address the problem and we may still get qualified people into positions without others being tempted to say yes the people are not there why don’t we sell it or sell the position?

“So if you look at it who do you blame? Is it the people who are selling or the system which is full of imbalances and creates opportunities for people to sell the quota of others? Now it is up to Nigerians to answer the question.”