IMIGRATION TRAGEDY; Court asked to sack Moro over NIS recruitment tragedy. Four job applicants in the botched recruitment exercise of the Nigerian Immigration Service have asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to declare the Interior Minister, Abba Moro, unfit to continue to occupy public office on account of the death of about 19 applicants during the exercise. The plaintiffs are Parience Omezie, Kasim Suleiman, Okojie Arabamen and Godwin Morka. They named the Federal Government, the Attorney General of the Federation, NIS and its Comptroller General, David Parradang as defendants. The plaintiffs asked the court to order Moro’s sacking because he supervised the agency responsible for the exercise, and in view of “his callous statement that Nigerians, who died and those injured during the exercise were careless.” They are also praying for N10m as general damages against the defendants. They equally want the court to order the minister, the NIS and others named as defendants in the suit to account for what the applicants paid and make refund to them “as such payment is illegal, unconstitutional and contrary to public policy and good conscience.” They want the court to declare that the defendants acted negligently and in total disregard to the sanctity of lives of over 520,000 Nigerians who were invited for job interview and or screening by NIS. The plaintiffs also want the court to declare that the N1,000 collected from each applicant is unlawful and contrary to Public Service rules and regulations, and that it constitutes a breach of constitutional and statutory duties of the defendants. In their statement of claims, the plaintiffs averred that the defendants were negligent in the way they conducted the recruitment exercise. Particularly, the plaintiffs, stated that the defendants, having conducted such recruitment exercise in the past, were aware that the number of applicants at each venue would be in excess of 20,000 and accordingly had arranged that the aptitude tests would be conducted at stadia in the various capital cities. They added that despite being aware of the large turnout of applicants, the defendants made no adequate arrangement to ensure the orderly accreditation of candidates and so delayed admission into examination venues between three and seven hours, resulting in the frustration of the plaintiffs waiting to be tested. The plaintiffs further alleged that in spite of the knowledge of the large number of applicants, the defendants restricted access into the venues to only one entrance, without providing adequate crowd control, resulting in a stampede. They stated that the defendants did not make any provision for comfortable conduct of the aptitude tests by candidates, and the distribution of materials as result of which candidates had to scramble to receive the aptitude tests and then write the aptitude tests while sitting on the ground, resulting in many being injured in the ensuing stampede.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 05:49:44 +0000
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