Can someone just tell me how NIS will possibly explain this away?giving the dead automatic employment?hmmmm....leaves so much to be desired!
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| how our leaders think... |
While the federal government made a pledge to the families of the about 20 applicants who lost their lives during the exercise and expectedly set up a committee to investigate the cause of the fracas, there is so much uncertainty regarding who to blame.
Interestingly, both the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, and Comptroller General of Immigration of (NIS), David Parradang, continue to make conflicting statements on the incident.
Last Sunday, a day after the recruitment disaster, Moro was quoted to have blamed some of the applicants for the tragedy.
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| so inhumane... |
“Of course, we expected some orderliness, but unfortunately, from the information that is available, from the observations that are made so far, people who didn’t apply, others who were not shortlisted for the exercise, turned up yesterday, including pregnant women, to undertake this exercise. It is very unfortunate.
“Everything that was required to be done to conduct a hitch free exercise yesterday was done by the Ministry of Interior and the NIS”.
But a letter of account by the Immigration boss indicates that he was not in the know of all the arrangements that were being made to recruit men into the service. “With proper consultation and working together as a team and with funds, the NIS, if given the lead role, would not have done it the way it happened,” Parradang said .
A correspondence to the Secretary, Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prisons Board (CDFIPB) on the 9th of September 2013, the day the adverts for recruitment into the service appeared in some newspapers, from the CG expressed his disenchantment with the decision of the “board” to appoint persons into the service “he heads” without his knowledge.
He said: “I am aware that the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prisons Service Board Act CAP: 12, 2004 confers power of appointment on the Board. However, the same Act equally delegates such powers (i.e. recruitment) to the service, particularly recruitment into category “B” (Inspectorate cadre)”.
Secretary to the Board, S.D. Tapgun expressed “regrets” that as “a major stakeholder” the CG of Immigration was not carried along, nor “consulted before the advertisement was published.
He added in the letter: “Be assured that useful lessons have being learnt and we shall do our very best to ensure that all stakeholders are accorded their due henceforth”.
Quite contrary to this, Tapgun while presenting his case to the National Assembly, said: “Only the Interior Minister and the consultant he engaged for the exercise can tell Nigerians exactly what happened. Even the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Immigration Service was not involved. He was not part of the recruitment at all. There was no board resolution to recruit anybody.
“When we, the members of the board, learnt about the recruitment, we wrote the Minister that we are not in support of engaging the services of a third party to conduct recruitment for the Immigration Service, but he ignored our letter and went ahead to engage the consultant.”
Furthermore, Tapgun presided over the meeting of the Steering Committee on E-recruitment on the 7th February 2014, held in the conference room of the Director/Secretary CDFIPB where far-reaching decisions on disastrous exercise were taken. And he signed the advert for the extension of the deadline for the closure of the acceptance of e-application from Sunday 20th October, 2013 to Sunday 27th October, 2013, because of the three- days public holidays declared in the month.
While the blame game continues, the dead are gone, while the physically injured are still nursing their wounds, but are being consoled that at the end, three relatives of the deceased would be given automatic appointment in NIS and also those who suffered physical injuries would also be given a place each.