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| Parradang and Moro |
The Senate Committee on Interior has shifted the two-day public hearing on the tragedy that occurred during the recruitment conducted by the Nigerian Immigration Service.
The hearing had earlier been fixed for Tuesday (today) and Wednesday.
It will now hold on Thursday and Friday.
No fewer than 19 people died during the NIS recruitment penultimate Saturday across the country.
The development made the Senate to direct its Committee on Interior to carry out public investigative hearing on the tragedy.
The Clerk of the Senate Committee, Mr. Isah Garba, had in a statement on Monday explained that the probe would hold at the Conference Hall 0231 in the Senate new building by 10am on Tuesday and Wednesday.
But a paid advertisement signed by the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Atiku Bagudu, on Monday evening stated that the public hearing would now be held on Thursday and Friday.
Bagudu listed those invited for questioning to include the Minister of Interior, Mr. Abba Moro; the Comptroller General of the NIS, Mr. David Parradang; Head of the Fedral Civil Service, Mr. Goni Aji; and the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar.
The Senate, at its plenary, presided over by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, last week Tuesday, had asked the committee to submit report of its investigation within one week with a view to unveiling and recommending for prosecution, those responsible for the tragedy.
The Senate’s outrage and resolutions followed a motion on the subject matter by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior, Senator Atiku Bagudu (PDP Kebbi Central) and 10 other senators.
Bagudu had recalled in the motion that as far back as 2011 the office of the Head of Service of the Federation had granted approval for the recruitment of a total of 4,556 personnel of various cadre for the NIS, ranging from Assistant Superintendent 1&2 to Immigration Assistant III.
He lamented that it took the paramilitary outfit three years before attempting to utilise the approval, which however ended in national calamity.
He noted in the motion that the Drexel Technical Global Services, assigned by the NIS to carry out the exercise, collected N1,000 from each of the 700,772 applicants that filled the recruitment form online.
He said this was contrary to the usual practice of not collecting money from any applicant by Customs Immigration and Prisons Board, the statutory recruitment body for the paramilitary outfit.
Bagudu said, “Prior to this tragic exercise, employment into the Nigerian Immigration Service is done in two usual ways.
“The service has responsibility of employ-ment 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”
Many of the senators, who participated in the debate, called for the sacking of Moro and Parradang for allowing the “shabbily organised recruitment exercise by an incompetent consultancy firm to take place under their watch.”
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