The Governance Watch Initiative (GWI) has condemned the response and defence of Interior Minister Abba Moro to the tragic recruitment exercise of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) that led to the death of many youths and left scores wounded.
The group, in a statement issued in Lagos and signed by its national coordinator, Barrister Rotimi Ogunwuyi, frowned at the statement credited to the minister that the applicants were impatient.
“We disagree and express displeasure over the statement credited to Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, whose ministry supervised the most tragic recruitment exercise in the history of Nigeria, by attributing the tragedy to the applicants’ impatience.
“It is rather unfortunate that a top government functionary will make such a callous statement; which we consider the height of the insults on the integrity of the applicants who were treated like lesser beings. The organisers are solely responsible for the failure of the recruitment exercise and the attendant tragedy for failing to make adequate provisions for crowd control at the venues.
“We are nauseated, like other Nigerians, by the method adopted in the recruitment exercise, where over 520,000 applicants were made to jostle for less than 5,000 vacancies, after 1,000 Naira has been collected from each of them. The poorly organised exercise during which thousands of applicants were taken to the various stadia for aptitude test with no chairs and desks attests to the fact that the recruitment was indeed programmed to fail.
“The harassment and intimidation suffered by the hapless applicants in the hands of other paramilitary agencies engaged by Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to supervise the recruitment exercise underscores the flagrant violation of the citizens’ fundamental human rights to life and dignity”, the organisation said.
GWI urged the Presidency and the National Assembly to rise above partisan politics and suspend, without delay, the interior minister, and to also institute a probe of the ugly incident, with a view to punishing those culpable and forestalling a recurrence.
The organisation condemned the insensitivity of some senators to the motion raised by Senator Babafemi Ojudu seeking the suspension of the minister, saying it shows that some people are playing the Ostrich in such a serious matter.
“Politicising a matter that touches on the lives of the generality of Nigerians such as the tragic NIS recruitment exercise is unacceptable and demeaning. Would the Senators have thrown the motion to the trash bin if members of their families were involved?” it queried.
The organisation also criticised the Presidency for its overly simplistic approach to the tragedy by offering jobs to the families of the deceased, wondering whether such an offer can compensate for the loss of loved ones.
GWI cited the case of Mrs. Victoria Amah, mother of Grace (an applicant) who died during the ill-fated exercise. She said her daughter was billed to marry on April 9th and that she had gone to shop for the wedding on the eve of the fateful day.
“The question to ask is which of the two families (bride and groom) who have been thrown into deep mourning should take the three slots offered by the Federal Government?” the group asked.
It therefore called on the Presidency to order a criminal probe into the controversial recruitment, saying that will be more acceptable to Nigerians than the mere cancellation of the recruitment exercise.
GWI also said it has now become imperative for the Federal Government to declare a job emergency as a way of tackling the unacceptably-high level of unemployment in the country, especially among the youth.
