The All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Sunday traded verbal attacks over the death of some job-seekers during an aptitude test conducted by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) that went rowdy across the country.
While APC said the blame should be on PDP and its administrations for turning the country into a sorry state, PDP accused the APC of playing politics with the death of Nigerians.
APC had said it was greatly distressed at the death of the 19 job seekers at the venues of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) job test, calling it a direct consequence of 15 years of misrule by the PDP-led Federal Government.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party urged Minister of Interior, Abba Moro to bear direct responsibility for the needless deaths by immediately stepping down from his post, if he has any honour left, or be fired.
It added, however, that the overall responsibility is that of President Goodluck Jonathan, who now seems to be bent on leaving a dubious legacy of bad leadership that has led to a grim harvest of deaths from insecurity, widespread violence and now job stampede, among others. APC commiserated with the families of the victims and wished those who were injured a speedy recovery.
“Despite huge yearly budgets rolled out since 1999, the PDP-led Federal Government has failed to create jobs for our teeming youth, and the number of those who are jobless has now reached such an alarming rate that a job emergency may have to be declared to avert an impending cataclysm.
“Massive mindless looting of the public treasury has seen funds that could have been used to create millions of jobs end up in the deep pockets of corrupt government and PDP officials, without any consequence for the thieves, while the incompetent federal government led by a clueless President continues to deceive the public with cooked figures showing job creation where indeed there have been job losses.
“Today, sadly, the truth has been laid bare: 5,000 or so vacancies declared by NIS have attracted over six million applicants, from which over half a million was shortlisted, according to published reports, and the desperation of our youth to eke out a decent living has been exploited by a villainous government that forced each applicant to cough out 1,000 Naira, thus raking in 6 billion Naira from jobless people”, the party said.
It further said that the Ministry of Interior has many questions to answer over the apparently shoddy arrangements made for the job tests in 37 venues nationwide.
“Is it true that the Minister directly presided over the recruitment and money-making venture? Could this have been part of the government’s fund-raising measures for the 2015 elections? Why will a government seek to profit from a malaise it created by charging hapless job seekers 1,000 Naira each?
“Why was a huge number of applicants invited for only 5,000 jobs or less? Why was such a shoddy arrangement made for the test when so many people were invited? Could the test not have been done in batches to avoid a stampede? How much indeed was realized from this glaring extortion of job seekers? What happened to the money?
“An investigation into the needless deaths of our youth, under a government that has failed them in every respect, must seek to answer those questions and recommend ways to avoid a recurrence.
“At least if a government cannot create jobs, it must neither profit from its incompetence nor send the victims of its ineptitude to their early graves”, APC said.
But in its reaction to APC’s accusation, PDP said the opposition party should be ashamed of itself for seeking to play politics with the unfortunate death of the Nigerians during the stampede.
National Publicity Secretary of the party, Olisa Metuh, in a statement, said the APC had again shown that it lacked respect for human life adding that its statement lacked class, and politicising the unfortunate incident was a clear manifestation of its ‘Janjaweed’ ideology.
PDP argued that it is despicable for the APC to condescend so low to trivialise and politicise weighty issues bordering on human lives while the families of the deceased were still mourning, all in a bid to score a cheap political point.
It said the APC, through its statement, had further exposed itself as a party of insensitive persons blinded by inordinate quest for power, adding that as a responsive party, it had since Saturday swung into action charging all relevant agencies to immediately conduct detailed investigations into the remote and immediate causes of the stampede.
While noting that the Federal Government had started an immediate response to the incident, the party said this is not the time to join issues with the APC, which it described as an ill-bred party which has no regard for human life.
PDP maintained that it would not be distracted by attacks from the APC but will remain committed to curbing unemployment in line with its manifesto and the Transformation Agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan.
