Residents of Banki town in the Bama Local Government Area of Borno State have given humanitarian organisations 72 hours to leave the town, accusing them of being discriminatory in their recruitment of staff.

A resident, who asked to remain anonymous, told RNI reporter Nana Hadiza Mustapha that people in the town were tired of being overlooked when it came to the recruitment of locals by FHI 360, an international nonprofit, and other humanitarian organisations.

“The organisations recruit staff only from far-off places, such as Lagos, Kaduna, Jos and others, but they refuse to recruit indigenes even though we have many educated people who qualify because they have studied community health, political science and other relevant fields and who would be able to work well with non-governmental organisations (NGOs). But they don’t give us a chance and that is why we want them to leave town.”

He said even youths who volunteered to work for free with the NGOs, hoping that one day they might be able to join them full-time, were overlooked when there were jobs available. He claimed the NGOs were using corrupt methods to recruit workers and had even got rid of the local volunteers.

The resident said it had been like this for four years. When the NGOS needed to recruit people for a job, locals had applied and had written the required tests but the NGOs still had not given anyone local a job.

When residents complained to the district head, he had suggested that the NGOs should recruit four locals out of seven people. But, the next time there was an opening for a job, locals again wrote the test and still no one from the town had made it even on to the shortlist of candidates.

“We are the ones affected, we speak native languages and our children have the required educational backgrounds to do such activities, but they pick people from far away, who cannot even speak the Kanuri, Shuwa and Ngarmagu languages. How are they going to help the locals if they cannot communicate,” the resident said.

He said that after they had complained, community leaders had sent a delegation to discuss the issue with residents.

“It has now been three days that the humanitarian organisations have not worked in Banki and we don’t know if they will resume. The local government chairman, Abba Kole Kumshe, had visited the area and the district head had sent a delegation to speak to the residents. But, they said, the only solution was for NGOs to recruit indigenes in the humanitarian work they carried out in the town.”

AISHA JAMAL