Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro, yesterday said he accepts responsibility for the deaths of 16 persons across the country, who were applicants in the recently conducted recruitment exercise by the Nigerian Immigration Service.
The minister said this while appearing before the Senate Committee yesterday, in Abuja.
He told the committee that at one of the board meetings before the recruitment exercise, the Ministry of Interior distanced itself from the decision of the consultants engaged to collect the sum of N1,000 as registration fee from applicants.
According to him, same was exclusively the decision of the consultants, Drexel Technologies Limited, engaged to oversee the conduct of the online application process on the portal.
He said: “Subsequently, the Board in implementing the agreement placed advertisements in five (5) national newspapers, on the 9th and 10th September, 2013 announcing the availability of vacancies for recruitment into the Nigeria Immigration Service. Applicants by this advertisement were directed to the portal for commencement of application.
“At the close of the portal a total of 710,110 applications were received, while 522,652 were short listed for the aptitude test and physical examination.”
