Federal Character Commission Grounded……Operates With Only One Commissioner

The Federal Character Commission (FCC) is operating with only
one commissioner out of the 37 required by law.

According to Daily
Trust’s^[1] findings showed that the
other 36 commissioners have served out their tenures but have not
been replaced by the federal government.

The current Acting Executive Chairman of the commission, Amb.
Abdullahi Halidu Shinkafi, is the only remaining federal
commissioner at the agency.

The commission’s official website also showed it is operating
without 36 commissioners out of the 37 approved by the Federal
Character Act.

It was gathered that Amb. Shinkafi’s tenure as a commissioner
representing Zamfara State would expire in April and the commission
would be left without a single commissioner. And so far, there are
no indications as to when commissioners would be appointed as, the
Presidential spokesperson, Mr Femi Adesina, when contacted on the
issue told Daily Trust that he had no information on the
matter.

Mandate of FCC
The FCC is a federal government body established by Act No 34 of
1995 to implement and enforce the federal character principle of
fairness and equity in the distribution of public posts and
socio-economic infrastructure among the various federating units of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The provisions of the 1999 Constitution in sections 14 and 153
consolidated the establishment of the FCC for operation in a
democratic system of government.

The commission is mandated by Paragraphs 8(1)(a) and (b) of
Section C, part 1, Third Schedule to the Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria to, “Work out an equitable formula,
subject to the approval of the National Assembly, for distribution
of all cadres of posts in the public service of the federation and
of the states, the Armed Forces of the Federation, the Nigeria
Police Force, other government security agencies and
government-owned companies/parastatals of the states.”

It is also mandated to “Promote, monitor and enforce compliance
with the principle of proportional sharing of all bureaucratic,
economic, media and political posts at all levels of
government.”

The commission is to also work out and ensure equitable
distribution of infrastructure across the federating units of the
country.

Gradual deterioration
In December 2018, Daily Trust reported that only seven states had
commissioners representing them at the FCC: Katsina, represented by
Barr Mahdi Jibril Daura; Zamfara, Ambassador Abdullahi Halidu
Shinkafi; and FCT, Dr Yunusa Musa Salihu.

Others were Osun, represented by Bashorun Awofisayo; Ondo,
Honourable Sheba Abayomi; Edo, Ifaluyi Isibor and Anambra, Mrs
Adaeze Gloria Idigo Izundu.

Then following states had no representation at the FCC the:
Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross
River, Delta, Ebonyi, Ekiti and Enugu states.

Others were Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi, Kogi,
Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto,
Taraba and Yobe states.

By the end of December 2018, the tenures of the commissioners
from Anambra, Edo and FCT expired and only four commissioners were
left in the commission by January 2019.

By February 2020, the number of commissioners dropped to only
one and if replacements are not made by the end of April this year,
the commission would be left with no commissioners from the states
to monitor its operations.

Amb. Shinkafi may likely hand over to the most senior staff in
the commission as the acting executive chairman if by April the
federal government still fails to appoint new commissioners to
replace those that have left.

Appointment of commissioners
Section 2(1) of the Federal Character Act of 1995 provides that
members of the commission shall consist of a chairman who shall be
the chief executive of the commission; a representative each of the
states of the federation; and a representative of the FCT,
Abuja.

Subsection 2 provides that the chairman and members of the
commission shall be appointed by the President, subject to
confirmation by the Senate.

The act further provides in Section 3(1) that the chairman and
members of the commission shall hold office for five years in the
first instance and for a further term of five years on such terms
and conditions as may be specified in their letters of
appointment.

The commissioners are expected to meet periodically to ensure
that “each state of the federation and the FCT shall be equitably
represented in all national institutions and public enterprises and
organisations” as outlined in the commission’s guiding
principles.

FCC activities suffer
Section 7(4) provides that the quorum for a meeting of the
commission shall be “not less than one-third of the total number of
members of the commission at the date of the meeting.”

Daily Trust gathered that the meetings the commissioners are
mandated to hold, at which recruitments into MDAs are supposed to
be reviewed to ensure equitable distribution, have not been held
for a long time since they could not form a quorum.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source within the FCC said
the absence of commissioners has affected policy making and
monitoring of recruitment exercises and provided room for job
racketeering in MDAs.

The source said there are about 24 committees overseeing over
600 MDAs, adding that it is impossible for the single commissioner
available now to monitor them.

Besides, the commissioners protect the interests of their
individual states and may be unlikely to advance the interests of
other states not represented at the commission.

Due to poor monitoring by the FCC, secret recruitments are said
to be on going in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

MDAs are legally required to advertise vacancies before
recruitment, but in some cases, they obtain waivers from the FCC
not to advertise.

Some agencies reported to have indulged in secret recruitments
included the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Federal Inland Revenue
Service (FIRS), Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate
(PTAD), Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), National
Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), National Space Research and
Development Agency, and National Open University (NOU).

Others are the Federal Civil Service Commission, University of
Abuja Teaching Hospital, Rural Electrification Agency, Nigerian
Navy and many more.

In October 2019, chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices
Commission (ICPC) Bolaji Owasanoye revealed that after the
commission discovered N9.2bn as over-bloated personnel costs of
MDAs, they went on secret recruitments for a cover-up.

“They hurriedly started employing people. Appointments given
yesterday were backdated one year, and ad hoc staff upgraded,” he
told the joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on
Anti-corruption and Financial Crimes at the 2020 budget
defence.

He advised that recruitment templates in all agencies of
government be changed from offline to prevent recruitment scandals,
a task clearly within the mandate of the FCC.

Also, the FCC has, since its inception, not carried out its
second mandate, which involves ensuring equitable distribution of
infrastructures across the country.

The former acting executive chairman of the commission, Dr
Shettima Bukar Abba, moved to implement the second mandate, but he
served out his tenure and exited the commission without doing
that.

Under Dr Abba, the FCC, in collaboration with the Budget
Ministry initiated an audit of the spread of Nigeria’s total
infrastructure stock across the country with the aim of identifying
possible lopsidedness and addressing them.

It is not certain if the audit was ever conducted, but certainly
the commission has largely ignored the second mandate even as
recruitment scandals rock MDAs.