President Goodluck Jonathan may have shown the nation’s minister of Interior, Abba Moro an omen of what to expect soon as he removed his authority of conducting further recruitment exercise into the Nigeria Immigration Service. Abba Moro bungled the exercise last week Saturday in which about 520,000 Nigerians participated out of which about 20 died and several other injured as a result of stampede.
An obviously angry President, at the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting today at the Presidential Villa, canceled the last week recruitment exercise and constituted a committee to reschedule the exercise nationwide. The special committee is being headed by the Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission.
Jonathan announced some form of compensations for the victims of the Saturday’s recruitment mishaps, which is that each of the family of those who died in the stampede will present three young people, one of which must be a woman for automatic employment in the next exercise. Also, all those who were injured would get automatic employment to be made available through the President.
The Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, who briefed State House correspondents after the Cabinet meeting said that the President also took certain measures which he announced to Federal Executive Council.
“The first is that the Immigration recruitment exercise has been completely cancelled and he has directed that a new exercise will be conducted by a special committee under the chairmanship of the Chairman Civil Service Commission to conduct the recruitment exercise to fill the vacancies of the Nigerian Immigration Service.
“Other members of the committee as announced by the President are the Comptroller General of Nigerian Immigration Service, representatives of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Comptroller General of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Comptroller General of Prisons Service, Director General State Security Service (SSS) and the Corp Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC).
“This committee will proceed to conduct the exercise to fill the vacancies in the Nigerian Immigration Service. The President also directed that for the families of those who lost their dear ones, three spaces be provided for three young people one of which must be a woman in the new recruitment exercise.
“Also, all those who were injured in the cause of the exercise across the country will be given automatic recruitment into the service.
“The FEC in sending condolences to the families of the deceased and also in sending special wishes to those who are injured and still undergoing treatment in hospitals in parts of the country, expressed total regrets that this tragedy took place at all.
“We are parents and we know what this means to those who have had the opportunity to train their children and are waiting for the opportunity for these children to now take their place and help their families, only to lose them under this very difficult circumstances that took place on Saturday.
“We reaffirm our commitment to ensuring that this kind of tragedy does not repeat itself in this country.
“The President has also directed that as soon as he returns from his trip abroad he will meet the families of the deceased to express his personal condolences to them over the sad tragedy that took place on Saturday.
“He instructed all MDAs never to embark on exercise of this nature in recruiting people into the public service because what happened could have been avoided. So Mr. President directed that no one outside the armed forces and the police who usually recruit people through exercise that no other MDA is allowed to embark on this kind of exercise that we witnessed on Saturday.
“Council noted that it is regrettable that this took place at a time that every effort was being made by government to increase spaces available for employment. For example last year, we were able to get 1.6 million employed in the various sectors of the economy and the public service. However, this incident that took place is so painful and we will not want to see in this country young job seekers losing their lives in the process of seeking for job after school training.”
“We assure the nation today that every step will be taken to look into the various lapses in recruitment exercises into the public service to ensure that all those who are qualified get access to employment without going through this kind of experience.”