By Ismail Auwal
The Federal Government has, on Sunday, ordered companies in Nigeria to employ qualified Nigerian graduates understudying expatriates or face sanctions.
The Chairman of the Special Ministerial Task Force on Monitoring and Enforcement of Nigerian Expatriate Business Permit and Expatriate Quota Administration, Mr. Bola Ilori, disclosed this in Osogbo, Osun State, after a meeting with Nigerian Immigration Service, Nigeria Labour Congress, Nigerian Bar Association, Nigerian Society of Engineers, other professional bodies and officials of the Ministry of Interior.
Mr. Ilori, at the end of the meeting, ask the companies to submit the details of Nigerians understudying expatriates, to verify their sincerity or otherwise to the policy, or face heavy sanctions from the Federal Government.
He added that, “Every company must submit the details of Nigerians understudying expatriates in their organisations. They must submit the Tax Identification Number, National Identity Number of each Nigerian understudying expatriate in their companies.
“We have discovered that some of the companies are not sincere, they just want to keep renewing the permits of their expatriates at the detriment of Nigerians. We want to know whether they are circumventing the policy or adhere to it.”
According to the chairman, “The problem is that some of these companies are either not employing Nigerians at all or using school certificate holders to be understudying expatriates who are managers. How can a school certificate holder understudy a manager?”
“What they are aiming at is that when the time comes for the expatriates to exit, the companies will say those understudying the expatriates do not have the capacity to become managers and you will agree with them. What that means is that Nigerians will not get to such positions and the expatriates will be there forever.”
“But they do that deliberately to defeat the purpose of the Federal Government’s policy.” He noted
