Revealed: N7Bn Realised From immigration Applicants Fee plus 4316 Of 4556 Immigration Jobs Shared To Govs, Lawmakers

 While thousands of unemployed Nigerians filed out to the various centres of the Nigeria Immigration Service recruitment with the hope of sitting for the recruitment examination and securing a job at the end, the same job they were out there struggling for that eventually led to the death of at least 19 of them, with several critically injured had already been allocated to well connected politicians, including state governors and federal lawmakers.

According to a finding by Daily Trust, only 240 of the 4,556 slots at the Nigerian Immigration Service remained for the 522,6752 “ordinary” applicants who trooped to the test centres on Saturday.

The Immigration Service had said a total of 522,652 applicants turned up at the venues spread around the country, battling for 4,556 jobs.

A source briefed about the recruitment process, which is being handled by the Board of Immigration, Customs and Prisons, told Daily Trust that among those who were already allocated job slots are governors, senators, House of Representatives members and ministers.


Another source from one of the top anti-corruption agencies said the money collected from all the applicants amounted to about N7 billion.

“Look, each applicant paid N1,000. From the record 7 million applied, so they generated about N7 billion,” he said.

When contacted, spokesman for the Immigration Service Mr. Chukwuemeka Obuah said he was not aware of sharing of the job slots, as the recruitment process was not even handled by the service itself.

In his words ...“I don’t know about that, I don’t know about the issue of slots. The issue of this recruitment exercise was undertaken by the board, the Nigerian Immigration Service did not operate the board,” Obuah said.

“What I know is that Nigerians lost their lives and it is tragic and unfortunate.”

Effort to get Senate’s position on this was not successful as chairman of the Senate Interior Committee Atiku Bagudu did not answer his phone calls.

But the House of Representatives Interior Committee said if National Assembly members were given any allocation of job slots, they were entitled to them.

Committee chairman Rep Umar Bature (PDP, Sokoto) told Daily Trust by telephone yesterday: “People can say whatever they want to say. The National Assembly members are members of the public. So if they are given slots, I think they are entitled to it. But that is the issue that we would look at when we meet with the Senate committee. But I think we should not be looking at the scapegoat,” he said.

He said the committee would investigate to find out causes of the incident.
On the criticism over monies collected from applicants, Bature defended the Immigration Service, saying all agencies routinely collect application form fees from job seekers.



Meanwhile, criticism has continued to trail the deaths of jobseekers on Saturday, with individuals and groups calling for the sack and prosecution of the Interior Minister Abba Moro as well as the Controller General of Immigration David Parradang.