Moro, Parradang, others to face Senate Thursday

            

A Minister of Interior Abba Moro and the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Mr. David Parradang, will on Thursday appear before the Senate Committee on Interior over the death of 19 applicants during its recruitment exercise.

The Clerk to the Committee on Interior, Isah Garba, in a statement, said the Atiku Abubakar Bagudu-led committee also summoned the representatives of the Police, Federal Civil Service Commission, Managing Director/CEO of Drexel Technical Global Services Limited, trade unions, victims and their families. and other stakeholders directly or indirectly connected to the incident.
It will be recalled that the Senate, at its plenary, presided over by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, last week mandated its Committee on Interior to probe the job tragedy and submit its report within one week.


Senate’s outrage and resolutions on the tragedy followed a motion moved by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior, Senator Atiku Abubakar Bagudu (Kebbi Central) and 10 others.
Bagudu had recalled in the motion that as far back as 2011, the office of the Head of Service of the Federation granted approval for the recruitment of a total of 4,556 personnel of various cadre for the NIS comprising Assistant Superintendent 1&2 to Immigration Assistant III.
The lawmaker had lamented that it took the NIS about three years before acting on the approval which however ended in the unfortunate disaster.

He noted in the motion that Drexel Technical Global Services assigned by the NIS to carry out the recruitment exercise, collected N1,000 from each of the 700,772 applicants that filled the recruitment form online.

He insisted that the practice was contrary to the usual practice of not collecting money from any applicant by Custom Immigration and Prisons Board (CIPB), the statutory recruitment body of the nation’s paramilitary outfits.

Bagudu said: “Prior to this tragic exercise, employment into the Nigerian Immigration Service is done in two usual ways.

“The service has responsibility of employment of junior officers while the recruitment of senior officers is handled by the Custom Immigration and Prisons Board, making the introduction of consultants and charging of N1,000 per applicant, a completely new dimension.”