More reactions have continued to trail the final list of Governor Fintiri’s CSC recruitment released last week. The reactions have swung wildly from anger to confusion, from praise to outright allegations of foul play. I had initially chosen not to join the discourse for personal reasons, but my conscience has repeatedly petitioned me to my creator to lend my voice. So here I am.
Let me first set the record straight to avoid being misquoted. I applied for the CSC recruitment. I wrote the exam and passed. I faced the interview panel, but I did not make it to the final list.
At the interview, I was asked to present my academic profile from primary school up to my bachelor’s degree. Before I even spoke, the Chairman glanced at my certificate, raised his head and asked, “Are you a first-class graduate?” “Yes,” I answered. A woman on the panel leaned toward me and whispered in Hausa, “Sannu yarona, take your documents and go.”
With my political background, I am not naïve. I know exactly how easy it would have been to activate the levers of influence. I have a lot of power brokers and political big shots in my contact list who would have told me to sleep peacefully while they “handled it" even without writing the exams and attending the interview as others did, but I deliberately refused to call even one.
To crown it all, one of the recruitment officials who knew me met me immediately after my interview, gave me her number, and said I should call later that evening. I never dialed it. I repeatedly told my friends: I want to test the system.
As someone who understands practical politics and the mechanics of governance, I never expected the recruitment to be completely slot-free or magically insulated from nepotism and cronyism, no matter how sincerely the Governor desired a fair and open process. Politics, by its very nature, does not operate in a sterile laboratory. It is messy, layered, and driven by competing interests.
The truth is simple, no one walks into the corridors of power alone. Every political victory is built on a coalition of financiers, foot soldiers, strategists, and loyal supporters who invest time, money, and influence, and when the dust settles, they expect dividends. For many of the key backers of the Fresh Air administration, the CSC recruitment represented the final and most tangible window to secure opportunities for their children and loyalists and some to themselves. And really, who can count how many such power brokers exist across our 21 local governments? The scramble was inevitable.
When people say the 5,000 CSC slots were shared among politicians and allies of the Governor, I do not rush to dismiss their claims. I understand perfectly well that job securing has become one of the unwritten KPIs by which our assembly members, chairmen and commissioners are being judged back home.
For the past three months, the CSC office has become a pilgrimage site for every smart politician in the state who sees delivering jobs as a political capital that sustains influence . They were not there for sightseeing. Many of them didn't get the slots by mere virtue of political influence, but they went the extra mile to get it.
To those shouting from the rooftops that their LGAs got fewer slots, your anger is valid but the target is misplaced . The Governor and the CSC are not the ones to blame. Query your assembly representatives, your chairmen, your commissioners, SAs of your LGA and the close allies of the Governor in your LGA for sleeping when their colleagues were milking your slots for their people.
And so, as tempers flare and accusations multiply, it is fair to say that the CSC recruitment was a classic tug-of-war between institutional procedure
and political expectation and the rope held. Those who played their cards well are now smiling at the state government payroll, while the children of nobody are left praying for the next open door.
Emme Emma Gwanah, writes from Guyuk LGA
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