By Suzan Edeh, Bauchi
No fewer than 60 persons who were recently employed as staff of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have cried out over what they declared as delayed posting and onboarding into various positions since August, 2023.
They stated this while briefing journalists at the secretariat of the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Bauchi.
According to the employees, the CBN had offered them employment which was followed by acceptance and instructions to resign from their previous places of work as a requirement for documentation.
Emmanuel Linus Dabo, one of the affected employees that spoke on behalf of others, told journalists that, they tendered their resignation letters to their former employers as at that time to enable them proceed with the CBN process.
According to him, the application process started in April 2023 where their resumé were submitted to the Headquarters of CBN and after some times, got mails from the Human Resources Department for interview and aptitude test.
He cried out to the CBN Governor, President Bola Tinubu and other stakeholders to look into their plights and reinstated them to their jobs, saying that the economic hardship has taken a toll on them after about three years of leaving their jobs.
“We did a medical examination from the Bank’s medical clinic where a code was given to individual applicants before we could access the hospital.
“After the interview, medical and aptitude test, the successful applicants were contacted by the HR manager to come over to CBN Headquarters in Abuja, to pick up our offer letter. We filled the acceptance without delay,”
“There were a series of e-mails from the Human Resources office to forward our credentials for the online documentation, including their acknowledged resignation letters from their previous employers”.
“After a long period of time, there was no further communication from the CBN after becoming jobless but we were optimistic of being deployed to their various offices while believing that the change of government at the Apex Bank must have affected the process” he said.
According to the offer of employment obtained by our Correspondent, allegedly issued by the Human Resources Department, it was stated that an offer of ‘Provisional Offer of Appointment’ for a probatory period of one year after which a satisfactory report would be given before the confirmation of the appointment.
Also, the group gave copies of acknowledged letters of reminder addressed to the new CBN Governor, written in September 2023, November 2024 and January 2025 but yielded no response from management.
“As I am talking to you, many of our colleagues have come down with depression. In fact, we just contributed N3,000 to some of them in the hospital. We speak with each other every time”.
“Many of us cannot afford to pay our rent anymore, we can’t pay our bills and have withdrawn our children from their schools. We don’t know how to explain to them about the current situation.
“Some of us studied abroad, decided to return and contribute to our country. We are pleading, the situation is worsening,” Dabo stated.
Efforts to get reaction from the Bauchi Branch of the CBN failed as an official who did not want his name mentioned, directed our correspondent to the CBN headquarters in Abuja.