Nigeria’s Minster of Interior, Mr Abba Moro, says the ministry did its best to ensure a hitch-free exercise for the applicants in the Nigeria Immigration Service’s screening, attributing the stampede that led to the death of 19 persons across the country to faulty crowd control.
The incident was witnessed in four centres – FCT, Benin City, Port Harcourt and Minna in Niger State.
The Minister described the incident as an unforeseen occurrence which was regrettable.
“I have been a labour man before I became a Minister here and I know what it takes.
“Every step that we have taken was out of a patriotic desire to ensure that every Nigerian has an opportunity of being enlisted. It is unfortunate that the poor management of crowd led to the death of people.
“I have gone to the hospital. I have seen for myself the situation in the hospital. In the General Hospital in Abuja, 11 persons are still on admission but in very stable conditions. Seven persons, five women and two men lost their lives,” the Minister said.
He also said that he had made adequate arrangements for those still in the hospital to be well attended to and had picked up the bills of all that were on admission.
“For those who have died, I made arrangement for ambulances to convey them to their various homes and left instructions that further contacts will be made with this families,” he said.
Mr Moro insisted that it was not lack of concern and adequate preparation that gave rise to the situation.
A labour union, the Nigerian Labour Congress has asked Mr Moro, to investigate the death of the innocent applicants, failing which he must resign from administering a Ministry that is increasingly notorious for employment scandals and employment tragedies.
The Vice President of the union, Isa Aremu, also faulted the Minister for blaming the victims for their own deaths.
“The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) must be blamed for not putting appropriate mechanisms for genuine aptitude tests and applicants crowd control even after collecting over six billion Naira from the applicants.
“What the nation needs urgently is a far reaching new labour market policy that will put an end to this serial primitive recruitment exercise which, leaves in its trail despair, tears and dead bodies rather than living employed applicants,” he emphasised.
