Keyamo Slams NASS: I Take Orders From Buhari

By GWG Staff

The minister of state for labour and employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo has faulted the directive of the Senate leadership to the director-general of the National Directorate of Employment, NDE to bypass him, Keyamo in the execution of the special works programme of the administration.

Keyamo who described the directive as illegal vowed to take up the directive of the lawmakers with the president.

Mr. Keyamo who had been in conflict with the lawmakers over the execution of the project had rebuffed attempts to draw him into a closed session when he appeared before the joint National Assembly committee on labour the previous week.

Following an appeasement meeting led by the minister of labour, Dr. Chris Ngige to the Senate leadership, Senate President Ahmad Lawan had directed the DG of the NDE to report directly to the National Assembly on the issue while at the same time bypassing the ministry of labour.

But faulting the directive, Keyamo said in a statement:

“With the utmost humility, I regret to say these directives are against the provisions of the NDE Act made by the National Assembly itself and the Constitutional provisions on Separation of Powers.

“By virtue of Section 3 (2)of the NDE Act, as supervising Minister, I am the Chairman of the Board of NDE that superintendents and gives directions to the Management of the NDE

“That by virtue of section 15 of the NDE Act, I am also authorized, as supervising Minister, to give general directives to the Board and Management, with which they must comply.

“By virtue of Section 16 (1) of the NDE Act, the supervising Minister has the sole prerogative to constitute Committees for the Agency.

“​In addition to the above, Section 6(2) of the National ​​​​Directorate of Employment Act states that, ‘The Director-​​​​General shall, subject to this Act, be the Chief Executive of the ​​​Directorate and shall be responsible to the Minister for the ​​​day-to-day management of the affairs of the Directorate.”

“Today, the National Assembly swept aside all these provisions of the law and Presidential directives and authorized the DG of NDE to proceed to submit a plan without the express approval of the Minister. This was  done in a desperate bid to get me out of the way AT ALL COST.

“In the circumstances of the above, I regret to say I am not bound by such a patently illegal and unconstitutional resolution by the National Assembly and I am only bound by the provisions of the law and the Constitution that all public officers swore on oath to uphold.”

Talking to reporters after the meeting with the Senate President, Keyamo said that he would go back to the president to take his directives.

“I will go back to the President for directives. The directives as to the execution of a project is not binding on me.”

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