The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) has dismissed a story making the rounds that it was recruiting staff.
A statement issued by the institution’s Director of Media and Publicity, Malam Ibrahim Sheme, cited a website, www.opr.news, as the one that published the story with the headline “NOUN Recruitment 2022/2023 Application Form Portal”.
Sheme said the website purported to have rehashed a fake report published by another dubious website, www.recruitmentbeam.com.ng claiming: “The National Open University of Nigeria recruitment for 2022 is currently ongoing.”
He said it offered to “provide information on NOUN recruitment portal (www.nouedu.net), how to apply for NOUN 2022 recruitment form and other related information to help you get the job.”
The director told the general public that the university is not recruiting anyone and that the story uploaded by the two websites is false.
He said: “It is easy to see through the fabrication carried by both websites in order to deceive the unsuspecting members of the general public. By asking the visitor to ‘Read more’, opr.news lures him to go to Playstore in order to download its application instead of giving him the said helpful information it claims to have.
“This type of deception is a familiar stock in trade of the dubious websites that scheme to achieve maximum hits and promote their business. They use the names of reputable institutions such as NOUN to exploit the sensibilities of job seekers.”
He recalled that the university had cause to warn the public about such scammers at least twice in the recent past, including in June, 2020 when a similar false alarm was circulated by an obscure website.
“At that time, we alerted the public about the fact that NOUN had no recruitment drive for either teaching or non-teaching staff in any category.
“We told the public that the University, after following the due processes, had ceased all recruitment since joining the government’s new salary platform, the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) in October, 2019.
“The university joined the IPPS system as ordered by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, and with that, has closed all recruitment of all categories of staff indefinitely.
“We are, however, dismayed to see that the purveyors of falsehood on the social media are not resting on their oars in their attempt to scam millions of Nigerians.
“Once again we wish to reiterate, for the record, that NOUN does not employ any staff without following the necessary steps for recruitment of any staff in a federal organisation.”
Credit:New Citizen