The House of Representatives on Thursday called for immediate deployment and payment of salaries and emoluments to the 176 injured and relatives of the deceased candidates of Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) which occurred on 15th March, 2014.
The payment, according to the report of the Ad-hoc committee on investigation of alleged abortion of recruitment of victims of 2014 NIS recruitment exercise stampede’, chaired by Femi Gbajabiamila, Minority Leader, takes effect from the date of the presidential directives.
President Goodluck Jonathan via a letter with Reference No.SGF.6/S.18/T/55 dated March 26, 2014, approved the immediate appointment of the families of the deceased and injured persons.
The Committee during an interactive session with Permanent Secretary of Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs, Director of Immigration, Fire Services, Prisons and NSCDC board as well as NIS Comptroller General queried the refusal to issue appointment letters to the injured victims, over five months after their screening.
The lawmakers also queried why the benefitting family members of the deceased applicants who have been given appointment letters on national television are still at home after six months.
According to the report, “the victims furthered alleged that same NIS that inflicted pain on them hurriedly within one month in May 2015 conducted a fresh recruitment exercise of new officers into the Nigeria Immigration Services.”
The House also called for immediate issuance of appointment letters and redeployment of the 176 injured candidates whose names were submitted by Directorate of State Security (DSS).
According to the report adopted by the House, “in order to verify the claims of other petitioners who were shortlisted and got injured in respect of the first aborted exercise (whose names are not in the list of 176) to the public complaint commission, a verification team from the comptroller-general office should visit government hospitals in the affected states where injuries were reported and obtain official reports from the hospital management in respect of the injury claims.
The lawmakers also urged that “the reports obtained above should be verified along with the medical reports submitted by the protesting candidates.”
In the bid avoid future mishap, the House urged Federal Government to “immediately set up a committee to look at the methodology of recruitment by federal government agencies in Nigeria and evolve a system/modality that will forestall reoccurrence of the NIS recruitment incidence.”
