The embattled Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro, has finally accepted responsibility for the tragedy that occurred at the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment aptitude test and Physical examination centres in some parts of the country on March 15, 2014.
He, however blamed the Ministry and the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prison Board (CDFIPB) for trying to institutionalise a formidable, transparent recruitment process that would engage Nigerians of all classes in legitimate employment.
The minister stated this before the Atiku Bagudu-led Senate Committee on Interior on Thursday, March 27, 2014, as they investigated the tragedy that resulted from stampede which ensued at the various examination centres.
In his presentation, Moro said: “Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Senators, we are deeply grieved and saddened about the way events turned out. We express our sincere regrets once again.
“However, permit me to state that our patriotic desire was the pursuit of a more honest, a more transparent, a more cost effective, a more efficient and equitable platform.
“We sincerely made appropriate and adequate preparations for a hitch -free exercise, but as most things in administrative and human conditions, the yield curve of expected outcome is mostly undefined.
“My heart goes out to the families of those who have lost their dear loved ones. I sincerely sympathise with those injured. I share in their grief. I share in their pains. May I, at this juncture, assure you, distinguished senators and Nigerians, of my respect for the sanctity of human life.
“The loss of these young Nigerians, who are needed as a critical human resource factor for nation building is most regrettable.As the Minister of Interior, under whose purview this unfortunate exercise took place, I cannot abdicate my responsibility.The buck stops at my table.”
The Minister also told the committee that at one of the board meetings held months before the recruitment, the ministry distanced itself from the decision of the consultants engaged to collect N1,000 as registration fee from applicants.
He pointed out that the decision to charge N1,000 was entirely that of the consultants, Drexel Technologies Limited, engaged to handle recruitment through online application process on the portal. He said following the placement of advert by the ministry in several newspapers, 710,110 applications were received and 522,625 shortlisted for the test and physical examination.
The representative of Drexel Technologies Limited, Theodore Mayaki, had earlier explained the decision of the company to fix an application and processing fee. He said the fee was carried out sequel to the company’s compliance with other sections of the agreement it reached with the Ministry of Interior.
Mayaki said that the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prisons Service Board had, prior to the recruitment, placed a demand for N201,844 as remittances for the conduct of what they called e-recruitment.
According to him, both parties agreed that since there were no provisions of funding for the execution of the exercise, Drexel would be able to find a way out of it, one which led to the company approving the sum of N45 million to the board.
Speaking earlier, the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Mr. David Parradang, told the committee that the NIS was left out altogether from the recruitment.
According to him, the Immigration Service got hint of the recruitment date last month at a budget defence session while appearing before the Senator Abubakar Atiku Baguduled committee, thus making it impossible for it to stop the exercise since the NIS was not the driver. “Why we could not stop this exercise is that we were not the drivers of this process at all.
So, the decision to stop it would never have come from me. I was not the driver of this process and my position had been very clear on this. “We didn’t talk on that occasion when we came before this distinguished committee on the 20th of February.
The issue we were invited for was strictly for budget and the presentation the NIS made was strictly on that issue.
I believe that it was during question and answer session that the minister was asked pointedly and he answered and said it was 15th March. It was not in the agenda of that day,” he said.
