House of Reps summons Interior minister, NIS boss

Minister of Interior, Abba Moro

The House of Representatives on Tuesday summoned the Minister of Interior, Mr. Abba Moro; and the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Mr. Shikfu Parradang, to explain the death of 21 Nigerians on Saturday in their bid to be enlisted into the NIS.

The victims, among them three pregnant women, met their death during stampedes at the various crowded venues of the NIS screening.

Moro and the CG are to appear before the Joint Committee on Labour, Employment, Productivity/Justice/Public Service Matters, which will conduct a public hearing on the tragedy.

 The hearing will be concluded within two weeks.

 The House also resolved that the Federal Government should identify relations of the dead victims and offer “automatic employment” to them.

 The decisions of the House followed a motion by a member from Kogi State, Mr. Sunday Karibi.

He told the House that the Ministry of Interior and the NIS collected N1, 000 each from “over one million youths” as administrative fee for only 4,500 vacancies.

 Karibi added that the painful aspect was that some of the victims survived road accidents to get to the venues only to lose their lives.

He blamed the deaths on the “poor arrangements” made by the NIS and the ministry.

 The lawmakers said, “In the end, only 20 per cent of the candidates could take the test because of the poor arrangements at the venues. Twenty-one Nigerians, including three pregnant women, lost their lives.

 “The NIS realised about N1bn from the sale of forms. Why could they not organise a proper test for them?

“We must condemn this exercise unequivocally and commiserate with the families of the victims.”