Immigration Test Tragedy: Applicants Sue FG For N523bn • Seek N1m each, demand N50m for every dead victim • Jonathan’s automatic job offer sparks rush for medical reports Even as survivors of last Saturday’s Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment tragedy begin another desperate hunt for medical reports to qualify them for the automatic jobs promised by the Federal Government, a mega lawsuit pitting applicants— mostly youths — against some government agencies may be underway. President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday approved an automatic employment for all those that were injured in the contentious test while three slots were also approved for deceased families. But, apparently unimpressed by the government gesture, four of the applicants, acting for themselves and on behalf of fellow applicants to the ill-fated recruitment exercise, yesterday dragged the Federal Government, the Minister of Interior, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Nigerian Immigration Service and its Comptroller General, David Shikfu Parradang before a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, seeking an order declaring the conduct or the execution of the recruitment exercise illegal, unwarranted and a violation of the Applicants’ fundamental rights to life. There were 522,675 applicants, out of which 15 lost their lives. Among other demands, they want the court to order the Federal Government to pay each surviving applicant N1 million and families of deceased ones N50 million each as general damages. This translates to N750 million for the dead and N522.66 billion for the surviving applicants, making a total of N523.410 billion. The suit which makes some damning allegations against the whole exercise declares, among others that, “the consultant firm for the recruitment exercise “is relatively unknown as it has no website of its own, no listing in any list of consulting firms, no history, no track record, and appears to have been set up just for this recruitment exercise. And that “the decision to use the particular consultant was taken solely by the Ministry of Interior for political patronage and the NIS leadership did not protest it to avoid a clash with the ministry leadership.” Meanwhile, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) in Edo State and Government Watch Initiative (GWI) have joined in condemning the handling of the recruitment calling for the suspension or outright sack of the dramatis personae. The plaintiffs who filed the suit at the registry of the court brought the application under Sections 33,34, and 44 of the 1999 Constitition (amended) and the equivalent articles of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Right Act. The applicants, Charles Ugwuonye, Friday Danlami, Chinedu Onwuka and Samson Ojo through their counsel, Emeka Ugwuonye, among other things, want the court to declare the recruitment exercise illegal and restrain the NIS National Mirror.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 11:42:35 +0000