The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) has clarified that the viral report suggesting that the agency is currently employing new staff is the “handiwork of fake recruitment syndicates established to mastermind fraudulent activities.”

In a Monday statement posted on the official X handle of the agency, NMDPRA expressed that it is compelled to publish the disclaimer to alert the public against such activities due to what it described as “exploiting young economically vulnerable and unsuspecting Nigerians perhaps into parting with huge sums of money for purported employment opportunities into the Authority.”

The statement reads, “They do this by issuing bogus “Letters of Employment” and empty promises, as well as offering non-existent positions. These may well be the handiwork of fake recruitment syndicates established to mastermind these fraudulent activities.

“We wish to use this opportunity to state categorically that the NMDPRA is NOT conducting any recruitment exercise currently. Neither is the Agency undertaking any kind of employment in its services at any level. For the avoidance of doubt, any future recruitment exercise would be undertaken in accordance with extant rules guiding such exercises in the Nigerian Public Service.”

The agency further advised the public to disregard these fake employment advertisements and urged them to visit its official website and social media pages to verify any recruitment claims.

The statement added, “In this regard therefore, we would like to advise the public and all Nigerians to ignore these spurious claims by unscrupulous people whose only objective is to defraud Nigerians and cast aspersion on the Authority.

“We further advise that for current and up to date information regarding all our activities, kindly refer to our official corporate website: www.nmdpra.gov.ng as well as all our verified online social media outlets (i.e. Facebook, Linkedln and Instagram) for authentic information.”