The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo has slammed lawmakers at the House of Representatives for demanding more slots in the Special Works Programme of the Nigerian Government.

With 30 out of 1000 slots per local government to each member of the House, the minority caucus of the lower chamber rejected the slots, saying the sharing process was not transparent.

In a reply to the lawmakers, Keyamo said the slots were only a privilege not a right.

He also said that the constituents of the lawmakers will benefit from the special works, adding that the threat of the lawmakers to reject the slots given to them was inconsequential.

He said, “The question of slots to certain persons was never a question of a right or entitlement, it is just a privilege given to them to recommend persons within their constituencies.

“The template is that 1000 persons will be picked from each local government area. That means whether they reject or accept is irrelevant because their constituents will still have their full entitlement of 1000 per local government.

“Except they want to tell Nigerians that it is only a section of those local government councils that they represent and not all the persons in the local government.”