Saturday, 15th March 2014, will not be forgotten easily by many people in Nigeria and especially in Lagos.
My niece was wedding that day in Ikorodu, a suburb of lagos and we needed to be there early since we had a major role to play. The first was the traditional marriage before the church wedding and my husband was in charge of introducing our family members to the groom family.
We left home by 6.30am since the traditional wedding was to start by 7.30am. You can imagined how shocked we were when we got to stadium and there was no movement. We turned and took Ogunlana Drive to collect Ojuelegba and it was same. The whole of Surulere was blocked and we were just wondering what was going on and how are we going to get out to connect Ikorodu Road. People came out of their vehicles and started asking wht the problem was. We knew the President was not in Lagos( the road is always closed for the Country's President), so what was the problem?
We eventually, took a narrow and terribly bad road to connect the bridge and got out to the .
Ikorodu expressway
Because we didn't get there on time, the traditional wedding had to be kept on hold till we arrived by 9am. The wedding went on successfully even at the Church and the Reception.
My niece Mboso and her sweetheart
Why was there so much traffic and chaos in Lagos that day? It was the recruitment exercise for the Nigerian Immigration Service. For only 4500 job opening in its service, NIS contracted a consultant who advised them that the hapless, unemployed, downtrodden and frustrated graduates in Nigeria should be charged N1000. So each applicant, candidate was to pay processing fee of N1000 Naira. At the last count, the Cconsultant made 710m naira from the applicants.
Mr. ABBA MORO, Minister of Interior
There were several centres across the Country like Lagos, Benin, Uyo, Abuja, Port -harcourt etc
In all the centres used that day, the consultant went to sleep after collecting and milking these helpless people because there was no crowd control mechanism put in place. The consultant knew how many applied and how many they extorted money from, for them to have made adequate arrangement but they did not.
For goodness sake, who conducts written examination or interview in a stadium? How were they going to supervise the written tests? Was it not absurd that the Minister of Internal Affair agreed to this horrible way of selecting candidates for an institution that is supposed to be conservative and discreet?
The TRUTH is that the Exercise was a fraud.
The first reason why I said it was a fraud is that the procedure for employment in the Civil Service was not followed. I am working in one of the Federal Government establishment and did not pay for processing fee. The government does not ask for application fee so where did this come from.?
Secondly, the government uses their own personnel for employment procedures and not contract it out to consultant, It is only the private sector that does that not public Service. Nigeria Immigration Service and the Minister of Interior who incidentally handled the recruitment refused to use established organs of Government and departments to carry out the exercise.
Also who conducts examination in a Stadium? The Stadium is an open big place with no privacy and proper coordination. How do you invigilate an examination where the people are sitting so close and there is so much noise and chaos?.
In view of the security challenge in the country, wouldnt
NIS have screened the applications online
to reduce the number of people that would
gather in a particular center at a time?.
Why wasnt the internet portal used for the application closed when they had received at least 10,000 application?
Lastly, the Consultant, DREXEL Technologies Limited, engaged by the Nigerian Immigration Service, is not registered according to the report in the Vanguard Newspapers. It was also gathered from the Labour Ministry that the company is not among the over 700
registered recruiter companies in Nigeria as at March 2014. Why were they engaged when they do not have the capacity to conduct or manage such responsibility?Why wasnt the internet portal used for the application closed when they had received at least 10,000 application?
DAVID PARADANG, Comptroller General, Nigeria Immigration Service
During the probe ordered by the National Assembly, the Comptroller General revealed that they were not carried along. He stated that the Ministry and the Minister took over the recruitment exercise and handed it over to the consultant to conduct. He also said there was no board meeting to that effect. Another Board member, MUSTAPHA ZAKARIYA, also stated that there was no board meeting or if it was called, he was not invited. The consultant in his defense, claimed that the money collected was to set up the portal and not for the actual recruitment exercise. Please tell me, is over N700m made from the applicants used for setting up internet portal to fill and download just application forms?
The Human Capital Providers Association of Nigeria, HUCAPAN, the supervisory body for recruiting companies, also disclosed that the Consultant is not their member and all the other companies that passed through the so called Ministerial Tender Board before Drexel are not registered by the Federal Government. Mr. Neye Enemigan, the head of that organisation had this to say:
“The unfortunate death was avoidable. It is something that should not have happened in any civilized country. It is a shame and for me I feel very sad. I express my condolence to the family. The outsourcing company is not our member. But what is worse is that we have taken pain to investigate and we have found out this outsourcing company is not even registered to recruit. For example, the Minister of Internal Affair, Mr. Abba Moro said that they followed due process and that they shortlisted four companies; Pyrich Global Limited, Bosmos Infotech Limited, Rosebonny Technologies Limited and Drexel Technologies Limited, and that all of them went through the ministerial tenders board.
“We have investigated and found out that all the four companies are not registered to recruit. In other word, the one that got the job, Drexel Technologies Limited is not registered, licenced or authorised by law to engage in that exercise. By Nigerian labour law and to be specific, section 23, 24, 25 and 71 of the Labour Act laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 makes it clear that the Minister of Labour and Productivity, will licence any organisation that is a recruiter. So, if you have not been licenced by the Minister of Labour and Productivity as a recruiter, what you are doing is illegal.
“The company collected according to what the Minister of Internal Affairs said, over N700 million and also by law, no prospective employee is required to pay a Kobo to get a job. You are not required to pay to get form, you are not required to pay for anything. That on its own is also illegal.
ATIKU ABUBAKAR BAGUDU, Chairman senate committee on Interior.
The senate set up an inquiry and held a public hearings on the matter. I hope that it would be done speedily. It was there that a lot was revealed about the sour relationship between the Minister and the officials of NIS. Even the Minister confessed that he was not in any of the centres as he was at a social function.
The senate set up an inquiry and held a public hearings on the matter. I hope that it would be done speedily. It was there that a lot was revealed about the sour relationship between the Minister and the officials of NIS. Even the Minister confessed that he was not in any of the centres as he was at a social function.
Even the candidates got to centres/stadium before the
organisers. It was a very poor management of the situation.
With no proper crowd control and coordination of examination materials, pandemonium and struggle took over and the rest is history. 20 applicants died in the stampede and scores of others were wounded. In the Benin City Centre, a pregnant woman lost her life and that of the unborn child.
The company is quack and the company should be dealt with in accordance with the law. They were to release 201m for the conduct of the exam but they released only 21m. Thank God that the President has ordered that the money paid by the applicants be refunded.
The botched NIS Recruitment Exercise just showed us that the rate of unemployment in this Country is frightening and worrisome. I pray the Government will rise up, create jobs, provide enabling environment, provide infrastructure (electricity, good road, less taxes) and encourage small scale industries
With no proper crowd control and coordination of examination materials, pandemonium and struggle took over and the rest is history. 20 applicants died in the stampede and scores of others were wounded. In the Benin City Centre, a pregnant woman lost her life and that of the unborn child.
The company is quack and the company should be dealt with in accordance with the law. They were to release 201m for the conduct of the exam but they released only 21m. Thank God that the President has ordered that the money paid by the applicants be refunded.
The botched NIS Recruitment Exercise just showed us that the rate of unemployment in this Country is frightening and worrisome. I pray the Government will rise up, create jobs, provide enabling environment, provide infrastructure (electricity, good road, less taxes) and encourage small scale industries
1 comment:
2015 NIS LATEST ANNOUNCEMENT ON THE RECENT CANCELED RECRUITMENT CALLS FOR PROGRESS BY THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF INTERIOR.
The Nigerian Immigration Service NIS. Is using this medium to inform all 2013/2014 "Recruitment Candidates" That The NIS has announced the progress of the cancelled and awaited screening result to be out within 2weeks of this publication while shortlist will be followed. The said recruitment progress will give automatic employment opportunity(Slots) to about 250,000 candidates out of 710,648 applications submited nationwide in 2014.
The NIS Recruitment Office now advice all candidates involved and new interest to follow the steps listed below in other to be verified and considered as an existing candidate.
1. All applicants are to submit directly or forward a copy of their curriculum vitae in eithes "doc,docx,txt or pdf format" and not a photocopy.
2. Attach a passport photograph to the email. While mails should be push to the NIS Recruitment Office Email: nisrecruit@post.com
3. Newly interested applicants should attach a photocopy of thier educational qualification result to thesame mail.
4. Applicants Are To Contact The NIS Recruitment Officials For Verification. +2349036369029 +2348135112047.
Those hotlines were set to be availabled from Monday-Friday,09:00Am-05:00Pm.
Note That The NIS Recruitment Managemant are not going to publish any shortlist on the official website for a security purpose but all applicants will recieve their results and application status on emails,also on sms alart as well.
Approval Letters for each candidate will be transferred to be availabled at all local government areas and the NIS Zonal Commands through out the nation.
Published By The 2015 NIS Recruitment Management,National Head Quarter Abuja (nisrecruit@post.com).
Thank You!
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