The cacophony of voices, distressing screams and movements around the only gate opened by the organizers were enough warnings that all was not well with the exercise. Like any rational person being confronted with danger, some of the 68,554 applicants invited to sit for the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) test at the National Stadium in Abuja made efforts to escape from the venue, as danger lurked on that tragic Saturday.
Some scaled the 10 feet wired fence like Olympic high-jumpers. Some were trampled on in the stampede that started inside the overcrowded stadium. The capacity of the stadium is 60,000. Some applicants who could not bear the heat collapsed. Unfortunately, only one ambulance was available to shuttle between the National Stadium and the National Hospital. Before help could come their way, 10 applicants were confirmed dead, including a pregnant woman who was said to have struggled but could not make it to outside the gate.
In July 2008, no fewer than 17 applicants died in a similar recruitment exercise. Official figures had it that over 195,000 applicants were jostling for 3000 available vacancies all over the country. The outcry then was resounding, and the Comptroller General was made the sacrificial lamb. She lost her job a few months after assuming office.
The applicants, most of whom came to the stadium in their sports wears, got the first shock of their lives when they got to the entrance of the 60,000-capacity stadium only to discover that some markets were more organized than the so-called recruitment exercise.
Abuja was not an isolated case; the situation was like that in all the 37 recruitment centres where the capacities of the venues were reportedly stretched beyond their limits.
Saturday Newswatch learnt that the security agencies and parastatals under the Ministry of Interior were not formally notified until a few hours to the exercise. In a memo marked CDFIPB/951/1, dated March 11, 2014, titled: “Request for Security officials for the NIS recruitment exercise,“ and signed by S. D. Tapgun, Director/Secretary of Defence, Fire, Immigration & Prisons Service Board, he attached a list of examination centres and number of applicants.
That was after D. S. Parradang, the Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service, had in a letter dated September 19, 2013, addressed to the Secretary, Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prisons Service Board (CDFIPB), Abuja. It was titled: “Re: Application for appointment of qualified persons into the Nigeria Immigration Service”. It was for the attention of Dr. R. K Attahiru (Director). In the seven-paragraph letter, Parradang had written: “I wish to draw your attention to an advertisement which has just been brought to my notice, calling for application of suitably qualified persons for appointment into category ‘A’(Superintendent cadre) and B (Inspectorate cadre) of the Nigeria Immigration Service in today’s Daily Trust – Monday, 9th September, 2013 at page seven (7). I wish to further state that the advertisement for employment took me by surprise and the agency which I heard (i.e. The Nigeria Immigration Service).
Parradang concluded the letter like a prophet, saying that “accordingly, I feel and request that the advertisement be withdrawn to allow for full consultation in order to avoid a repeat of the experiences of the past recruitment exercise.”
Parradang was not alone in advising the Board and indeed the Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro, to tread on the path of caution.
The Chief of Staff to the President, in a memo to the President, titled: “Re: Extortion of monies from hapless unemployed youths by the Federal Ministry of Interior in the guise of employment recruitment,” and received in the President’s office on December 11, 2013, said the Head of Civil Service of the Federation be directed to issue a definite directive to all Federal Government agencies to, forthwith, desist from direct or indirect extortion of applicants during recruitments and that the Federal Civil Service Commission be directed to bring up a holistic and adaptable recruitment guidelines for consideration and possible adoption by all Federal agencies.
Saturday Newswatch gathered that the President acted on the Chief of Staff’s memo by directing the Minister of Labour and Productivity and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation to bring the issue as a memo to the Federal Executive Council.
Mr. Matt Aikhionbare, Senior Special Assistant to the President (Admin) drew the attention of the Minister of Labour and Productivity and the SGF to the President’s directive via a memo with Ref. PRES/94/MLEP/70/81/SGF/-3/591 dated December 30 last year.
But Comrade Moro will have none of that. He had, with the assistance of a company identified by Tapgun – a Director and Secretary of the Board of CDFIPB when he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives – sidelined both the Board and the Comptroller General of Immigration in the ill-fated recruitment exercise.
Tapgun named Rexel Technical Global Nigeria Limited as the consultant used by Moro to “fix everything, including a N1,000 fee, which they claimed was administrative charges.”
A search at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) on Thursday, however, revealed that Rexel Technical Global Nigeria Limited is not registered with the agency.
Saturday Newswatch had on March 18 written to the minister requesting the name and contact address of the consultant. The letter was received in the office of the minister on March 19. The minister is yet to reply.
One of the applicants, Miss Tonia Okonkwo, however, said none of the applicants knew those behind the consulting firm. According to her, interested applicants were told to register on line by visiting a website: http:/recruitment.cofipb.gov.ng/registration/select to upload their bio data after which they were expected to click the submit button. After that, a payment web page is opened where they are to choose a mode of payment and a transaction is generated and printed. That, according to Tonia, was what applicants took to the bank for payment, after which an identification number with which the acknowledgement slip would be printed is given to applicants.
The clumsy arrangement might have been responsible for the minister’s inability to determine the actual number of applicants invited for the recruitment and the shoddy arrangement made for the test. For example, the question papers brought to the National Stadium Abuja were grossly inadequate. A business man was said to have brought a photocopier to the stadium gate, and promptly printing the papers for applicants at a fee of N1,000. Such were the exploitation the applicants were subjected to before the bedlam.
But Comrade Moro, in his initial reaction after his attention was drawn to the tragedy that followed the exercise, said: “They refused to follow laid down procedures spelt out to them before the exercise and many jumped through the fences of the affected centre and did not conduct themselves in an orderly manner.”
Abuja based Human Rights lawyer, Mrs. Esther Uzoma, said the minister should be arrested and tried for culpable homicide, for the wilful exposure of Nigerian youths to situations that are likely going to cause death. Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission concurred with Uzoma in his twit. He described it as “corporate manslaughter.”
Nigeria Labour Congress, Kaduna, said it is an unacceptable development that runs against best employment practices as contained in conventions and resolutions of International Labour Organisation of which Nigeria is a signatory.” The Trade Union Congress (TUC) described it as a national disaster in which the victims paid the supreme price trying to be more useful to the country.
Source: Daily Newswatch
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