Heads may soon roll in the Ministry of Interior and the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) following the unprecedented tragedy that happened during last Saturday’s recruitment tests. More than 20 jobseekers died.
Already, President Goodluck Jonathan has summoned interior minister Comrade Abba Moro and comptroller-general of the NIS David Parradang to the presidential villa where he queried them over the recruitment exercise.
At a closed-door meeting held in the president’s office, Jonathan, LEADERSHIP gathered, asked the duo to explain why over a million jobseekers should be meant to turn up at a venue designed to contain only about 60,000 people without adequate measures put in place for crowd control.
Over 20 unemployed graduates including three pregnant women were killed in the stampede which occurred in Benin, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Minna during the recruitment exercise conducted by the Ministry of Interior.
An embarrassed and angry Jonathan was said to have grilled Moro and Parradang for about two-and-half hours. When the duo came out of the president’s office looking dejected, they refused to talk to journalists.
Meanwhile, Lagos lawyer and human rights activist Mr Femi Falana (SAN) has asked President Jonathan to sack Moro over the stampede at the Immigration recruitment centres across the country. According to Falana, “contrary to the resolution of the House of Representatives that the Ministry of Interior should not collect any application fee from applicants, Moro extorted N700million from 700,000 jobseekers to fill 4,556 vacancies”.
“In order to maximize ‘profits’ from the misfortune of the applicants, the Ministry of Interior refused to involve other agencies of the government including the police, State Security Service, Federal Road Safety Corps in the recruitment exercise. Hence, there were no ambulances to attend to those who might fall sick and security personnel to maintain law and order at the examination centres,” the legal luminary added.
Calling for the immediate sack of the minister, Falana said: “Since Moro is vicariously liable for the avoidable deaths of the applicants, we call on the federal government to sack the minister of interior, Mr Abba Moro. In addition, the bereaved families of the deceased should be compensated by the federal government.”
He further described as highly insensitive Moro’s reaction to the tragic incident, which he said was a mere claim by the minister that “the applicants lost their lives due to impatience; they did not follow the laid-down procedures spelt out to them before the exercise…”
Noting that Moro’s “reckless statement” was designed to cover up the criminality involved in the job scam, Falana said, “In the light of our experience in the mismanagement of crowds in similar exercises in the past, the Ministry of Interior ought to have made adequate arrangements to secure the lives of the applicants.
“Having failed to discharge his constitutional duty in the circumstance, Mr Moro has turned round to blame those who lost their lives for the criminal negligence of the federal government.”
Falana further recommended that, henceforth, the federal government should ensure “that the millions of unemployed youths are paid monthly maintenance allowance in line with the provision of Section 16(2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“They do not have to take up arms against the state before they are amnestied by the federal government”.
SERAP drags Nigerian government to UN
A non-governmental organization, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, yesterday dragged the Nigeria government to the United Nations, UN, over alleged violation of jobseekers’ rights during the NIS recruitment exercise last Saturday.
In a petition sent to the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, the executive director of SERAP, Adetokumbo Mumuni, asked Mr Ki-Moon to publicly condemn the degrading treatment of jobseekers; and refer the unlawful deaths to appropriate UN human rights bodies.
Mumuni stated that Saturday’s stampede in various venues is a sign of a growing level of economic injustice in Nigeria. He asked the UN scribe to refer the tragedy to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Council.
“The unlawful deaths and inhuman and degrading treatment of the jobseekers constitute violations of their rights to life, dignity and work. The case also shows the growing level of economic injustice caused by pervasive corruption and lack of opportunities for Nigerian children to enjoy the right to employment and to gain a living by work, as guaranteed by international and regional human rights treaties to which Nigeria is a state party,” Mr Mumuni said.
Mr Mumuni said that a referral to these bodies will be an indication that Mr Ki-Moon upholds the values and moral authority of the UN which has zero tolerance to violations of human rights.
“SERAP believes that access to a first job constitutes an opportunity for economic self reliance and in many cases a means to escape poverty. Young persons, particularly young women, generally have great difficulties in finding initial employment,” he said.
The group also cited Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which guarantees the right to work, to free choice of employment, to protection against unemployment, and to an existence worthy of human dignity.
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