Victims of the ill-fated Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment exercise have started flooding the National Hospital, Abuja, in their bid to benefit from President Goodluck Jonathan’s directive that all applicants injured during the stampede that marred last Saturday’s nationwide recruitment test be given automatic employment.

Sources at the hospital told News Express that over 100 injured people had turned up requesting to be documented in the wake of the presidential directive. The hospital’s Head, Public Relations Unit, Mr. Tayo Hastrup, would not confirm that. He said that only over ten people came yesterday with certificates claiming to have been injured at the tragic job test that claimed about 20 lives.

“To set the record straight, we received over 71 applicant victims. As I speak to you now we have only six injured victims, out of which four were discharged few days ago and two are still currently on admission in the hospital,” Mr. Hastrup said.

He added that those that came from different hospitals with different certificates have not received any attention yet as directed by the hospital management despite the presidential directive made on Wednesday, that records of injured applicants be taken for necessary action.

Mr. Hastrup however assured that, in keeping with the culture of the hospital, records of those admitted are intact while those of people sent to other hospitals would be collated for proper documentation.

A competent source at the National Hospital faulted the figures released by the hospital management, saying: “Contrary to the figures released by the hospital management, over a hundred people were brought into the hospital with various degrees of injury. Eight bodies were dead on arrival while two others died later, thus, bringing the total dead to ten. This includes one pregnant woman.

“It got to a point that we can’t admit any more patients as all the beds in the hospital have been occupied by critically injured victim applicants. As a result, some were sent to other hospitals for quick attention.”

News Express reports that President Jonathan had on Wednesday cancelled the bungled NIS recruitment exercise. He set up a committee to handle the exercise and compensated the deceased victim with automatic employment for three family members as well as automatic employment for the injured applicants.

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