Lagosians allege fraud in job recruitment exercise

Some residents across Lagos State have alleged fraud in the ongoing job recruitment programme by the state government.
The state government had announced vacancies in its local government councils across the state for residents seeking employment.
According to the announcement, application for the job commenced on Monday September 25 and was expected to end on September 29.
But since the opening of the job portal, applicants across the state lamented that the recruitment was nothing more than a scam.
Our correspondents, who visited some cybercafés in Lagos, observed frustrated and stranded applicants making unsuccessful attempts to fill the online application form.
They alleged that the job portal must have been manipulated purposely to make it impossible for the applicants to process their application.
Our correspondents also gathered from the applicants that the job portal had not been available to applicants during the day time.
An applicant at Ojodu Berger, Ololade Faleye, told our correspondent, “They are only deceiving us. The job site has not been accessible since they declared it open. I have kept vigil for two good days in order to access it, but nothing happened. I have taken heart and concluded to look elsewhere for job.”
Another applicant, who spoke with our correspondent at a cybercafé in Ketu, Lagos, said, “This is Nigeria. We all understand the trick. They deliberately manipulated the site so that very few people could access it in order for them to slot in their people. It is unfortunate that we don’t have government in this country.”
Corroborating Faleye, another applicant, Oluwaseun Omolewa, said, “The announced job offers are not real. What they simply do is closing the site in the day time and opening it at night. That does not show a sign of a true government that wants to deliver the dividends of democracy to its people.”
When our correspondent visited the site at about 2am, it was not accessible.
A computer software engineer, Wole Adamolekun, said the site might be experiencing some problems due to the overwhelming traffic.
“Although there is nothing that is not possible, the site handlers can manipulate it for personal reasons. I want to believe that all the people are experiencing are due to technical problems,” he said.
Meanwhile, all efforts to get the state government’s reaction were not successful as calls and text messages to the governor’s Chief Press Secretary received no response.