Senate Begins Probe Of NIS Recruitment Disaster

THE Senate on Tuesday approved the conduct of a public hearing into the death of 21 persons who died in the course of employment screening of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) on Saturday.

The development was sequel to a motion by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior, Senator Atiku Bagudu, which was supported by nine others.

The Senate in addition observed a one minute silence in respect of the souls of the departed.

Bagudu observed that the Senate should “condemn the poor handling and logistic provisions at centres across the country which resulted in the various accidents.”

The submission was, however, opposed by Chairman, Senate Committee on Senate Services, Senator Suleiman Adokwe, who insisted that the lawmakers cannot condemn the development since it has not been investigated.

He said that it would be “judgmental” for the chamber to condemn the development when the investigation was yet to be completed.

Senator Kabiru Gaya, who observed the situation in Kano stated that the recruitment exercise was poorly handled.

Senators also called for the investigation and prosecution of those involved in the ill-fated exercise.

Senator Gaya told the Senate of the Kano situation:

“When I saw the situation in Kano, I shed tears because the Kano stadium has a capacity of 14,000 but on that day, we had a stadium filled with 27,000 yet the NIS intended to employ only 4,500!

“There’s also a newspaper report that the NIS intends to fill only 240 slots from those who attended the interview that day because those are the only slots available. How can you conduct an examination in a stadium? I also want an investigative panel be set up to determine what really happened...”

Another senator who commented on the tragedy, Senator Odion Ugbesia said “it’s dangerous if we allow this to go on. It also shows the level of inefficiency in our parastatals.”

Senator Smart Adeyemi, however, insisted that the way out of such tragedies was to restructure Nigeria.

He said: “I believe that the solution to this is not just to sit here and do one minute silence. We must restructure the country. We don’t need 36 states as presently constituted...we don’t have to be equal because there’s no state in Nigeria that’s not endowed.

“I don’t believe in accumulation of foreign reserves at the expense of infrastructural facilities that are dearly lacking...there’s nothing wrong in bringing ministers here...we must bring them here quarterly to render account. We must investigate the allegation that slots were given to senators so that Nigerians don’t begin to stone us when we move around.”

Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the sitting agreed with the lawmakers on the need to investigate the tragedy and gave the Committee on interior one week to complete the assignment.