At last, a reprieve came the way of victims and relatives of the 2014 Nigeria Immigration Service recruitment tragedy. The federal government offered automatic jobs to 105 of the relatives of those that died and those hapless applicants that sustained injuries in keeping to the promise made by the immediate past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Interior, Bassey Akpanyung, said in a statement issued last week that the offers were made after due verification.
The statement reads in part: “After verification, 15 families were identified, and a total of 45 family members were selected from the deceased families. Similarly, approval was given for those who were injured in the same exercise to be employed.
“After due verification by relevant agencies of government, 60 of those affected were considered for appointment”.
Akpanyung also revealed that two categories of beneficiaries are now undergoing training at various camps of the Service in compliance with the presidential directive. The federal government’s compensation to the affected applicants and their next of kin is commendable. Nevertheless, it was long overdue. On this platform, we had canvassed for adequate compensation to the affected victims and relatives of the dead but the government failed to do the needful despite the public outcry.
Those who were identified as being responsible for the tragic incident walked freely because they had either the backing of big shots in government or they were fronting for them.
It is necessary to recall that the immigration recruitment disaster claimed the lives of 23 unemployed graduates who were among 600,000 job seekers that responded to the nationwide recruitment exercise conducted by the Service.
The avoidable tragedy occurred at the Abuja, Port Harcourt, Jos, Minna and Benin centres following the stampede that broke out due to poor coordination of the aptitude test, resulting in the death of the applicants while thousands of others sustained various degrees of injuries.
Sadly, each of the 600,000 applicants that registered for the test was made to pay N1, 000 in defiance of several resolutions by the House of Representatives that government agencies should refrain from imposing levies on job seekers.
Although Abba Moro, the erstwhile minister of interior, said about 520, 000 people registered for the recruitment test, and that only 4,556 were to be recruited at the end of the exercise based on the available vacancies, it was obvious that the ulterior motive of those behind the exercise was to fleece innocent and desperate Nigerians of their money considering the crude method they employed. No doubt, the botched recruitment exercise has gone down as one of the highest profile job scams under the watch of a federal government agency in recent years and in collusion with a prominent senator allegedly behind the online ICT firm through which the applicants paid the fees.
However, coming on the heels of this reprieve was the report of the alleged secret recruitment of some people who are currently undergoing training at the Immigration School in Kano. The development sparked off a protest by over 2,000 persons said to have been recruited into NIS earlier and had been undergoing training at various centres before they were unceremoniously disengaged. The protesters who stormed the office of the Interior Minister, Abdulrahman Dambazau, were demanding for explanation for the shoddy treatment they received. The ministry should get to the bottom of the issue and take appropriate action.
We commend the federal government for assuaging the pains of the relations of those killed during the tragedy as well as those injured for the reprieve given to them, even though compensation in any form cannot be equated with the lives lost. It is also noteworthy that those who were involved in the scam are facing the rigours of justice. They should pay for their sins to serve as a deterrent to those greedy job providers that are in the callous habit of fleecing the have-nots who are in search of jobs.
