Tough-talking Nigerian Interior Minister, Comrade Abba Moro, has vowed not to resign as demanded by Nigerians angry over the Saturday’s bungled test for recruitment into the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) that claimed about 20 deaths.

Speaking yesterday during a radio interview in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, Moro declared that he will not resign his appointment, claiming that doing so would tantamount to running away from the problem.

Moro claimed that his ministry did its best to ensure a hitch-free exercise, attributing the stampede that led to the deaths to faulty crowd control.

The minister, who earlier on Saturday blamed the victims for the tragedy, saying their impatience caused the stampede, described the incident as an unforeseen occurrence which was regrettable.

Hear him: “I have been a labour man before I became a minister here and I know what it takes. Every step that we have taken was out of a patriotic desire to ensure that every Nigerian has an opportunity of being enlisted. It is unfortunate that the poor management of crowd led to the death of people.

“I have gone to the hospital. I have seen for myself the situation in the hospital. In the General Hospital in Abuja, 11 persons are still on admission but in very stable conditions. Seven persons, five women and two men lost their lives.”

Moro said that he had made adequate arrangements for those still in the hospital to be well attended to and had picked up the bills of all that were on admission.

“For those who have died, I made arrangement for ambulances to convey them to their various homes and left instructions that further contacts will be made with this families,” he stated.

He disclosed that the federal government would soon inaugurate a panel of eminent Nigerians and stakeholders to probe the tragedy and come up with a template for future exercises, to ensure that the nation does not experience such deaths in future.

The minister said that all other recruitment exercises in other parts of the country have been put on hold, saying: “To be fair to the people who lost their lives and to ensure transparency in the remaining exercise, it has to be put on hold.”

On why the exercise was not done in batches considering the huge number of applicants for the jobs, the minister said: “We wanted to ensure a level playing ground for everybody that was qualified. That was why everybody was asked to turn up. If it had been done in batches, the same Nigerians will make accusation of attempts to influence the outcome through favouritism among others.”

However, according to the Nigeria Labour Congress, Moro’s excuses are not tenable. NLC president, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar said in a statement issued in Abuja: “The explanation by the Minister of Interior, Abba Morro, that 520,000 applicants were invited for screening for 4,556 spaces and that the applicants died in a stampede due to impatience and non-adherence to lay down orderly procedure, is rather weak and untenable.”

NLC had yesterday in Kaduna staged a peaceful protest at the NIS State Command over the incident. The protesters led by the NLC Vice-President, Mr Isa Aremu, arrived the NIS state command early in the morning and blocked its entrance and prevented the staff from entering their offices.

Meanwhile, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sent a petition to the UN Secretary General, Mr. Ban ki-Moon, requesting him to “publicly condemn and refer the unlawful deaths and inhuman and degrading treatment of job-seekers by the Nigerian government to appropriate United Nations human rights bodies.”

•Photo shows Interior Minister Abba Moro.