Immigration test tragedy: Applicants forced to pay N3.8bn – Lawmakers Senate yesterday commenced public investigation into the deaths of 19 applicants at the weekend recruitment of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) . Besides, the chamber observed a minute silence in honour of the dead victims as well condoled with their families and sympathised with those injured in the tragedy. This is even as the House of Representative raised its own probe panel. Chairman of the Senate Committee on Interior, Atiku Bagudu, moved a motion, supported by nine other senators. It also emerged that the NIS and consultants mandated to conduct the recruitment, pocketed N3.8 billion from the exercise. Part of Bagudu’s prayer, which sought to “condemn the poor handling and logistic provisions at centres across the country which resulted in the various accidents”, was not approved by the chamber. Senator Suleiman Adokwe moved against the prayer on the premise that it would be “judgmental” for the chamber to condemn when the public hearing on the incident had not even taken place. The chamber concurred with him. Chairman of the Committee on Privatisation, Sen. Gbenga Obadara, disclosed how the NIS and its consultants collected not only N1,000, but another N3,000 was also collected as “processing fee.” Earlier, senators demanded investigation and prosecution of those involved in the ill-fated exercise while the Chairman of the Committee on States and Local Governments, Sen. Kabiru Gaya, also relayed the experience of job applicants last Saturday. “When I saw the situation in Kano, I shed tears because the Kano stadium has a capacity of 14,000 but on that day, we had a stadium filled with 27,000 yet, the NIS intended to employ only 4,500! “There’s also a report that the NIS intends to fill only 240 slots from those who attended the interview that day because those are the only slots available. How can you conduct an examination in a stadium? I also want an investigative panel be set up to determine what really happened…” To Sen. Odion Ugbesia, “it’s dangerous if we allow this to go on. It also shows the level of inefficiency in our parastatals,” while Sen. Smart Adeyemi believes that the solution is simply to restructure Nigeria. His words: “I believe that the solution to this is not just to sit here and do one minute silence. We must restructure the country. We don’t need 36 states as presently constituted…we don’t have to be equal because there’s no state in Nigeria that’s not endowed. “I don’t believe in accumulation of foreign reserves at the expense of infrastructure that are dearly lacking…there’s nothing wrong in bringing ministers here…We must bring them here quarterly to render accounts. We must investigate the allegation that slots were given to senators so that Nigerians don’t begin to stone us when we move around”, he said. Sen. Olusola Adeyeye agreed that the allegations must be probed, noting that “whenever I go to my constituency, my people would tell me that there are always slots for senators and they keep asking me: ‘Where are our slots?” Chairman of the Works Committee, Sen. Ayogu Eze, demanded that nobody must be recruited from the botched exercise just as he called for an outright cancellation, “because it’s already tainted by scandals and controversies.” Eze also supported the public probe and added that “people who mismanaged the process must be held accountable.” Sen. Heineken Lokpobiri added a comical twist when he noted that “there’s more unemployment in states controlled by the All Progressives Congress (APC)”, while Sen. Gbenga Ashafa said that “in 2013, it was scam galore in this same ministry. In 2014, it’s deaths galore. For the sake of democracy and for the sake of democracy working all over the world, the Interior Minister Abba Moro should tender his resignation.” The Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters Committee Chairman, Sen. Umaru Dahiru, demanded prosecution and punishment of those involved in the scam and called for compensation for the applicants. Rounding off debate, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, who chaired the session, said section 17 (3) of the 1999 Constitution indicated that suitable employment for its citizens is a primary responsibility of government. “We must redistribute income so that those who are unemployed can get stipends…this is not beyond us; we can deal with it,” he said. The Interior Committee has a week to conduct a public hearing on the incident and report back to the Senate. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives yesterday raised a panel to probe the tragedy even as some members urged President Goodluck Jonathan to relieve Moro of his appointment on account of the incident. Seven job seekers were confirmed dead and several others injured following a stampede at the National Stadium, Abuja last Saturday. Apart from Abuja stadium, injuries and deaths were also recorded at Benin, Port Harcourt and Niger states due to poor crowd management by the firms contracted to organize the exercise. Debating on the incident, House members criticised NIS for what they called poor handling of the exercise. They passed a resolution to conduct a public hearing where “stakeholders” will be invited to give first hand accounts of what led to the injuries, and deaths of the applicants. Speaker Aminu Tambuwal mandated the Committees on Interior, Labour and Productivity, Justice and Public Service Matters to organise the public investigation which is expected to last four weeks. The motion for the probe captured under Matter of National Importance was moved by Hon. Sunday Karimi (Kogi/PDP) In his lead debate, Karimi insisted that the tragedy occurred because of the shoddy arrangement for the recruitment. He noted that NIS ought to have done a better organisation of the exercise considering the high response to the advertisement and the fact that approximately N1 billion was realiised from the sales of recruitment forms. He querried: “Why could the NIS not properly organise a recruitment test or programme? Why did the Service not conduct internet-based recruitment tests? Why should the aptitude test not have been conducted in conducive educational centres in batches all over the nation? Why was it so poorly coordinated that it resulted in the death of innocent and halpless Nigerians?”. He said Saturday’s tragedy confirmed that the rate of unemployment in Nigeria is at a “perpetual all time high”. Hon. Ali Madaki said the job seekers’ deaths portrayed “Nigeria as a classical example of a failed state”. On the step that Moro must take as a result of the tragedy, Hons. Nkiru Onyejeocha (Abia/PDP) and Abike Dabiri-Erewa (Lagos/APC) among other lawmakers, called on the minister to resign. Onyejiocha: “Our leaders should take responsibility for their failings”. Dabiri-Erewa: “The Ministry of Interior must take full responsibility foor the tragedy… This issue must not be swept under the carpet”.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 05:42:55 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015