Federal lawmakers yesterday asked President Goodluck Jonathan to fire the Interior Minister and the Controller General of Immigration over the recruitment exams stampedes that left at least 16 jobseekers dead on Saturday.

Angry senators and members of the House of Representatives, in speeches made on the floors of the two chambers, said Comrade Abba Moro and Mr David Parradang must go because they bear responsibility for the deaths.

Over 500,000 applicants trooped into recruitment test centres around the country on Saturday, resulting into stampedes that left 16 dead in Abuja, Minna, Port Harcourt and Benin.

The minister and the Immigration boss have come under fire, with many eminent Nigerians calling for their heads over the incident. President Goodluck Jonathan queried them on Monday but there is no firm indication that they would lose their jobs.

In the Senate yesterday, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, who is the chairman of the Senate Interior Committee, tabled a motion, along with 10 others, demanding for an investigation of the incident.

The Senate adopted the motion and asked the Interior Committee to conduct a public hearing and report back in a week.

It also urged the Federal Government to come up with a plan to address the high rate of unemployment in the country which primarily led to the tragedy.

In the motion, Bagudu said in 2011, the office of the Head of Service of the Federation granted approval for the recruitment of 4,556 personnel of various cadres for the Immigration.

He said Drexel Technical Global Services, which was assigned by the Immigration authorities to carry out the recruitment exercise, collected N1,000 from each of the 700,772 applicants who filled the recruitment form on line. This means that over N700 million was collected in application fees.

This, he said, is contrary to the usual practice of not collecting any money from applicants by the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Board (CIPB), the body empowered to conduct recruitment for paramilitary outfits.

“Prior to this tragic exercise, employment into the Nigerian Immigration Service is done in two usual ways. The service has responsibility of employment of junior officers while the recruitment of senior officers is handled by the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Board (CIPB), making the introduction of consultants and charging of N1,000 per applicant a completely new dimension,” he said.

Most Senators who spoke called for the sack of the Interior Minister and the Comptroller General of Immigration for allowing the shabby recruitment exercise through “an incompetent consultancy firm.”

Senator Ayogu Eze said, “This problem has brought out one clear issue that from the Minister of Interior Abba Moro and the Immigration CG down to the consultancy firm assigned to carry out the recruitment exercise, is nothing but failure of national assignment, and they must be held accountable for the failure by whatever way permissible in the laws of the land but must first be shown the way out of their offices.”

But Deputy Senate Leader Abdul Ningi (PDP, Bauchi) said what was needed was a holistic roadmap that will provide urgent solutions to unemployment.

“We must see the last Saturday’s unfortunate tragedies as collective guilt, collective fault. It goes beyond the issue of Minister or Comptroller General of Immigration,” he said.

Senator Olusola Adeyeye (APC, Osun) said: “Politicians in the country across party lines should start preparing to run for cover on account of looming revolution in the land to be carried out by the large army of unemployed youths or graduates in the country as clearly shown with the mammoth crowd of unemployed Nigerians who besieged NIS recruitment centres nationwide.”

Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the session, suggested that in line with section 17(3) of the 1999 Constitution, “if need be, the Senate shall legislate on increased quantity of level of employment in the country.”

Also in the House of Representatives, lawmakers bemoaned the manner in which deaths were recorded at the Immigration jobs tests on Saturday, describing the recruitment exercise as “nothing but a scam.”

The lawmakers, who took more than two hours debating the tragedy, wondered how the Interior Ministry as well as the Immigration service went on to sell thousands of forms to Nigerians, even when the vacancies were not close to the number of forms sold.

Rep Ahmed Babba-Kaita (APC, Katsina) said in view of the number of forms sold, which was beyond the required number of applicants, “the whole recruitment exercise has turned out to be nothing but a scam.”

Rep Nkiruka Onyejeocha (PDP, Abia) said, “With this loss of lives of Nigerians who were seeking employment, the minister should resign. If you know your vacancies, why would you sell forms more than that number you require?”

Similar position was shared by Rep Aliyu Sani Madaki (APC, Kano) who also called for the resignation of both the Interior Minister and the Controller General of Immigration.

“Nigeria is a classic example of a failed state, but we keep on pretending as if nothing is wrong. If we do not act now there will be a time they will come against us,” he said.

The House resolved to mandate its committees on Interior, Labour, Public Service Matters and Justice to investigate the matter in a public hearing and bring recommendations.

Rep Sunday Karimi (PDP, Kogi), who brought the motion on the Immigration tragedy, said over one million youths scrambled for 4,500 job placements, which led to the deaths.

“In Calabar, Ogun, Lagos and many other centres, candidates were flogged and abused by security personnel all in a bid to secure white-collar job,” he said.

“Despite the fact that applicants were requested to come to the centres in their sport outfits, no physical test was conducted and only about 20 percent of the candidates were able to participate in recruitment process as a result of its poor organisation.”

He said the Immigration service had realised “approximately N1 billion from the sales of recruitment forms”, and wondered how the service failed to organise internet-based recruitment tests.

On the allegation that the Immigration vacancies were already shared to lawmakers, Rep Bitrus Kaze (PDP, Plateau) dissociated himself from benefitting in the sharing, and called for the setting up of an ad hoc committee to investigate the allegation.

•Text courtesy Daily Trust. Photo shows part of the crowd of applicants that thronged the tragic job Immigration test.

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