The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo made this announcement on the Government behalf.

The programme, designed for artisans to do public works for three months for N20,000 per month, suffered setbacks in commencement date because of internal wrangling between the minister and a former Director-General of the National Directorate of Employment, Nasir Ladan, who was sacked last week by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The minister said the programme ran into some “hiccups” hence the delay in the commencement date earlier announced.

The “hiccups” may be connected with the struggle for the control of the programme by the sacked Director-General who was at loggerhead with Keyamo over the implementation of the programme.

The sacked Ladan, it was gathered, worked with the National Assembly to undermine Keyamo who is the supervising minister following the fallout between the minister and the lawmakers.

Both the government officials couldn’t bring themselves to work together on the programme as Ladan continuously flouted the directives of the minister while cozying up to the National Assembly members.

Twice, the Federal Government announced a new date for the kick-off of the programme designed to employ 774, 000 Nigerians in the 774 local government areas.

“We have taken a firm decision to begin on January 5, 2021 but I am going to make an official announcement after FEC on Wednesday. We had a few hiccups in December but we have taken a decision to begin January 5 which is a Tuesday.

“The programme will run from January to March 2021 which is pure dry season. So, we are ready. All the obstacles have been removed,” the Minister.

PDP alleged that political godfathers in the All Progressives Congress, APC-led federal government have taken over the allocation of 774,000 jobs to those associated with political office holders instead of all Nigerians.

A statement by PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan described the method of allocation adopted by the APC administration as “illegal and anti-people.”

Ologbondiyan stressed that the process was an injustice to unemployed Nigerians who have no godfathers or affiliated to any political party.

According to Ologbondiyan: “While our party is not against the creation of job opportunities to Nigerians, we reject this crafty political allocation, which is a direct exclusion of hardworking Nigerians from opportunities that should have been open to them under an open and transparent process.

“The PDP rejects a situation where, in each local government area, 800 slots of the 1000 jobs have already been pencilled off to political cronies while the remaining 200 openings are thrown open for contest to the public, which also include politically affiliated persons.

“Such brash violation of the principle of fairness and equal opportunity by the APC and its administration, is a direct invitation to restiveness and acrimony in the country and as such, should be immediately rescinded in the national interest.

“This is especially given allegations already in the public space that the resort to political allocation of jobs is designed by selfish APC leaders to corner the opportunities for selfish pecuniary reasons.

“Consequently, our party charges the Federal Government to rescind the resort to political allocation and only engage Nigerians through an open, transparent and all-inclusive process in the allocation of the 774,000 jobs.”

Recall that Festus Keyamo, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, had recently alleged that the programme was for all Nigerians and not for APC members alone.

Also, Keyamo had accused some politicians of blackmailing and pressuring him into getting slots in the 774,000 jobs approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Against this backdrop, the minister had threatened to resign if the jobs meant for Nigerians were hijacked by politicians.

The 774, 000 jobs is a federal government programme aimed at employing unskilled Nigerians and they would be paid N20, 000 monthly.