The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) fired more than 42 of its newly recruited employees without paying them salaries for 12 months.

One of the sacked workers who craved anonymity for this story, confirmed the development to Pulse.

According to Daily Nigerian, the sacked workers were recruited in December 2019 – a couple of months before Director-General Mustapha Maihaja was relieved of his role as boss of NEMA.

While trying to settle into his new role, Maihaji's successor Muhammadu Mohammed wrote to the new employers, informing them that their appointment was illegal because some civil service regulations were not followed.

Mohammed said he had ordered an investigation into the appointments.

Afterwards, NEMA Deputy Director, Musa Zakari, told the affected staff that “the outcome of the investigation shows that the laid down rules and regulations guiding recruitment into the civil service were not duly exhausted, thereby vitiating the whole process and its outcome."

Petition

On September 8, 2020, the affected workers would go on to petition the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, asking for her intervention in the development, Daily Nigerian reports.

The sacked workers, some of whom resigned from their jobs to take up the NEMA offer, insisted that they passed through all the necessary processes regarding recruitment into the agency.

“We have all resigned from our various places of work and now have no means of taking care of ourselves and dependents. This month September makes it exactly one year since the recruitment exercise.

“By December, we will be marking one year of untold hardship as a result of appointment without employment," some parts of the petition reads.

NEMA spokespersons or representatives were not immediately available for a response to this story.