By Lawrence Olaoye, Umar Puma, Tobias Legnan Dapam Abuja, Adesoji Oyinlola, Lagos, Osaigbovo Iguobaro, Benin & Yakubu Mustapha, Minna
The National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS) has called on President Goodluck Jonathan to sack the Interior Minister, Abba Moro and the Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), David Parradang, over their shabby management of the immigration recruitment exercise which resulted in the death of thirteen applicants.
This is even as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have called on relevant government authorities to investigate the remote and immediate cause of the tragedy, with a view to mapping out strategies to prevent future occurrence.
Meanwhile, reacting to the stampede, which allegedly left thirteen persons dead, the Minister for Interior, Abba Moro, who supervises the NIS, said the stampede arose because many people who did not apply for the jobs also came for the screenings.
In a statement issued yesterday by the National Publicity Secretary of NANS (Zone B), the association expressed bewilderment over how the recruitment exercise would leave thirteen applicants dead.
It said the overall turnout of millions of Nigerian youths as job seekers for less than 5,000 job slot in the Nigerian Immigration Services is an attestation of the present pathetic situation facing youths and graduates in Nigeria.
“The death of innocent Nigerians and the numerous injuries recorded at the National Stadium, Abuja and other parts of the country, is an axiomatic representation of civil servants inability to handle even a mere recruitment screening exercise, how much more of effectively handling the offices they have been manning for the past years”, the students said.
While expressing confidence in the ability of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to bridging the youth unemployment gap in the nation, NANS expressed confusion at how he intends to achieve this.
Meanwhile, report by the Premiums Times has revealed that NIS has cornered N520 million from unemployed Nigerians, who are seeking employment into the various carders of the service.
Premium Times reported that during registration for the job tests, the Immigration authorities received N1, 000 from 520 thousand applicants, which yielded N520 million from the applicants.
This is in defiance to several directives from Nigeria’s House of Representatives that government agencies should refrain from charging job applicants.
The lawmakers have issued repeated resolutions to that effect, but all have been disregarded by the agencies, and other government establishments, including the military.
The NIS had declared vacancies for about 5,500 personnel across the country and engaged the services of an ICT firm, Drexel, to create an online registration platform through which money was extorted from applicants.
Drexel, however, came up with a complex registration process which required the applicants to download forms at cyber café, fill a part of it to generate a slip referred to as “Pay4me.”
In a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs, Imam Imam, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Waziri Tambuwal, described as unfortunate, the deaths recorded in most centres where the aptitude test was administered.
He said the death of the innocent youths was sorrowful and regrettable considering that they were at the screening centres in search of jobs that would improve their lives and that of their loved ones, even as he urged governments at all levels to work closely with the Organised Private Sector to tackle the unemployment crisis facing the nation.
Moro blames intruders
According to the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, who coordinates the NIS, he said the stampede resulted from impatience on the part of the applicants, adding that people who did not apply for the jobs also came to write the aptitude test.
Speaking at the National Hospital when he visited victims of the stampede, Moro said, “Unfortunately, from the information that is available, people who didn’t apply, people who were not shortlisted for these exercise, turned up yesterday including pregnant women to undertake this exercise. It is very unfortunate”.
The minister however debunked reports that about 3 million people applied for the job, saying it was only 526, 650 Nigerians applied based on their records.
“Let me make it very clear for the umpteenth time, one million, three million didn’t apply for this exercise. I said it and I repeat myself; the records are there for everybody to see, five hundred and twenty-six thousand, six hundred and fifty people applied for this exercise”, he said.
Unconfirmed reports say the total figure of casualties is higher than thirteen, as hundreds of thousands of applicants thronged the test centres across the 36 states and Abuja.
It’s PDP’s misrule – APC
Reacting to the issue, the All Progressives Congress (APC) said it is greatly distressed at the deaths of 19 job seekers at the venues of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) job test on Saturday, calling it a direct consequence of 15 years of misrule by the PDP-led federal government.
In a statement issued in Lagos by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the party said the Minister of Interior must bear direct responsibility for the needless deaths by immediately stepping down from his post, if he has any honour left, or be fired.
It said, however, that the overall responsibility is that of President Goodluck Jonathan, whom it says is bent on leaving a dubious legacy of bad leadership that has led to a grim harvest of deaths from insecurity, widespread violence and now job stampede, among others.
”Despite huge yearly budgets rolled out since 1999, the PDP-led federal government has failed to create jobs for our teeming youth, and the number of those who are jobless has now reached such an alarming rate that a job emergency may have to be declared to avert an impending cataclysm.
Don’t play politics with death, PDP cautions APC
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has cautioned the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) against politicizing the misfortunes of those who lost their lives at the weekend during the stampede at the recruitment exercise of the Nigeria Immigration Service.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, in a statement yesterday said the APC has again shown that it lack of respect for human life adding that its statement lacks class, and politicizing the unfortunate incident was a clear manifestation of its ‘Janjaweed’ ideology.
The PDP said it was despicable for the APC to condescend so low to trivialize and politicize weighty issues bordering on human lives while the families of the deceased were still mourning, all in a bid to score a cheap political point.
