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Tag: David Parradang

  • FG suspends Comptroller-General of Immigration

    FG suspends Comptroller-General of Immigration

    The Federal Government has suspended from office the Comptroller-General of Immigration, Mr David Parradang, with immediate effect.

    This is contained in a statement signed by the Director of Press, Federal Ministry of Interior, Mr Yusuf Isiaka Alhaji, on behalf of the permanent secretary of the ministry, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja.

    The statement said the Deputy Comptroller-General of Immigration, Mr Martin Kure Abeshi, had been directed to take over the affairs of the office.

    Abeshi is the most senior officer after Parradang, the statement added

  • Moro, Parradang, others to face Senate Thursday

    Moro, Parradang, others to face Senate Thursday

    A Minister of Interior Abba Moro and the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Mr. David Parradang, will on Thursday appear before the Senate Committee on Interior over the death of 19 applicants during its recruitment exercise.

    The Clerk to the Committee on Interior, Isah Garba, in a statement, said the Atiku Abubakar Bagudu-led committee also summoned the representatives of the Police, Federal Civil Service Commission, Managing Director/CEO of Drexel Technical Global Services Limited, trade unions, victims and their families. and other stakeholders directly or indirectly connected to the incident.

    It will be recalled that the Senate, at its plenary, presided over by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, last week mandated its Committee on Interior to probe the job tragedy and submit its report within one week.

    Senate’s outrage and resolutions on the tragedy followed a motion moved by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior, Senator Atiku Abubakar Bagudu (Kebbi Central) and 10 others.

    Bagudu had recalled in the motion that as far back as 2011, the office of the Head of Service of the Federation granted approval for the recruitment of a total of 4,556 personnel of various cadre for the NIS comprising Assistant Superintendent 1&2 to Immigration Assistant III.

    The lawmaker had lamented that it took the NIS about three years before acting on the approval which however ended in the unfortunate disaster.

     

    He noted in the motion that Drexel Technical Global Services assigned by the NIS to carry out the recruitment exercise, collected N1,000 from each of the 700,772 applicants that filled the recruitment form online.

     

    He insisted that the practice was contrary to the usual practice of not collecting money from any applicant by Custom Immigration and Prisons Board (CIPB), the statutory recruitment body of the nation’s paramilitary outfits.

     

    Bagudu said: “Prior to this tragic exercise, employment into the Nigerian Immigration Service is done in two usual ways.

     

    “The service has responsibility of employment 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.”

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  • The danger ahead

    The danger ahead

    •The NIS tragedy reflects government’s lackadaisical attitude to job creation

    Perhaps the most touching dimension of the distressing loss of lives during stampedes that marred the March 15 nationwide recruitment drive by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) is the fact that even the unborn died, as four pregnant women numbered among the  casualties of the tragedy.  The expectant mothers, three in Benin, and one in Port Harcourt, were among 520,000 job seekers chasing a disproportionate 4, 556 vacancies, a reality that provided a terrifying signal on the state of unemployment in the country. The death toll, put at 19, which included applicants in the federal capital Abuja, Benin in Edo State, Minna in Niger State and Port Harcourt in Rivers State, showed a spread that betrayed generally abysmal arrangements at the recruitment centres across the country.

    Deservedly, Interior Minister Abba Moro and NIS Comptroller-General David Parradang have been widely criticised for apparent dereliction of duty, and the usually dilatory President Goodluck Jonathan is reportedly highly disappointed with their performance and may punish them for embarrassing the government. However, whatever the eventual outcome of Jonathan’s reported meeting with the two officials in the wake of the tragedy, the truth is that these deaths and the overall conduct of the exercise indict the central government in the critical area of creation of employment opportunities, especially for the country’s burgeoning youth population.

    It is disturbing that Moro not only failed to see the obvious connection between the regrettably avoidable deaths and official irresponsibility; he also tried to shift the blame, rather disingenuously. According to the evidently disconnected government functionary, “The applicants lost their lives due to impatience. They did not follow the laid down procedure spelt out to them before the exercise. Many of them jumped through the fences of the affected centres and did not conduct themselves in an orderly manner to make the exercise a smooth one. This caused the stampede and made the environment unsecured.”

    However, it is instructive that Moro’s excuse was contradicted by one Samuel Jaja, a NIS applicant and relation of 25-year-old Brown Darlington who lost his life at the Port Harcourt centre. Jaja said the job seekers were made to sit on the floor at the stadium to write the examination. It was the same story at the recruitment venue in Calabar, Cross River State, where the applicants reportedly sat in the Federal Government Girls College sport field to write the test.  Clearly, such primitive organisation, which was incredibly reflected at virtually all the venues, could not have resulted in a smooth exercise, contrary to Moro’s poor reasoning.

    It is pertinent to question the purpose of the application fees paid by the job seekers in the light of the disgraceful and embarrassingly inept handling of the recruitment. The news that preliminary investigations by security agencies uncovered details that a staggering N7 billion was collected from 734, 000 applicants by a consultancy firm working for NIS suggests a racket that is principally about the size of the cash inflow and indifferent to the objective of crisis-free screening. The sad fatalities should prompt the government to ensure a far-reaching probe of the recruitment methods of NIS.

    What compounds the calamity is the remarkable fact that, about six years ago, equally tragic deaths occurred during a July 2008 nationwide recruitment by NIS and Nigeria Prisons Service (NPS). Seventeen lives were lost in similar circumstances, but no lessons were learned by the recruiting organisations, which is the fundamental point about the latest tragedy. It would appear that not only has NIS learnt nothing from history; it also seemed to have forgotten history, with the result that it failed to take proactive measures to forestall a repeat.

    The country is evidentially facing an unemployment crisis of mammoth magnitude; and the government must, as a matter of urgency, respond creatively and with all seriousness and sense of purpose. Addressing the issue before it well and truly gets out of hand must be at the top of the government’s priorities, for this is obviously a time bomb that will likely have devastating socio-economic consequences. The government must act decisively to prevent the danger ahead.

    It is lamentable that the country’s leaders continue to fail in productively exploiting its oil-rich status to maximise good governance.  For instance, one of the biggest paradoxes of the government’s approach to development is the liberal multiplication of universities without a reasonable concomitant policy on growing jobs for the products of these institutions. It is definitely  a sure path to trouble, and the conditions that fuelled the NIS recruitment tragedy may be only the tip of the iceberg as the competition for shrinking vacancies grows in intensity with so many chasing so few jobs.

    Furthermore, counter-productive official policies continue to effectively limit expansion in the private sector, thereby restricting the job opportunities available outside the public sector and complicating the unemployment problem.  Certainly, the country’s deplorable infrastructure is a huge aspect of the crisis. To be specific, the unresolved power problem and the appalling state of the road network, for instance, have a seriously negative implication for employment possibilities; and significant improvement in these areas should be among the government’s key developmental goals, and not just theoretically.

    What the country needs at this time, and urgently too, is a hands-on style of governance, meaning that the critical governmental figures should spend less time chasing shadows and get down to the important business of working for “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”

    We commiserate with relatives of the dead and hope that never again would we witness such avoidable tragedy.

     

  • Minister faces sack over 19 job seekers’ death

    Minister faces sack over 19 job seekers’ death

    Jonathan lashes Moro, NIS chief

    Protests in Abuja, Kaduna

    Interior Minister Abba Moro’s job was hanging in the balance yesterday after a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Besides, there were protests in Abuja and Kaduna over the death last weekend of no fewer than 19 job seekers at Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment centres.

    Jonathan summoned Moro and NIS Comptroller General Mr David Parradang to the Villa to explain what went wrong.

    The presidential action followed the national outcry that greeted the deaths in Abuja, Minna, Port Harcourt and Benin centres of 19 applicants, including expectant women.

    Eminent Nigerians have called for Moro’s resignation or his sack by the President over the poor handling of what should be a routine event.

    Moro insisted yesterday that he would not resign. He blamed the victims for the stampede that led to their deaths, saying they failed to obey instructions. The minister added that some unauthorised people came to the centres to cause problems. He promised to set up a probe.

    The organisation of the recruitment has been generally adjudged to be shoddy, with 520,000 job seekers chasing 4, 556 openings. There was stampede at the stadia used for the recruitment.

    In Kaduna, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) led a protest to the NIS.

    In Abuja, a civil society organisation spearheaded a march on the office of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

    The NLC, in a statement by its President AbdulWaheed Omar, called for a probe of the deaths.

    Moro and Parradang were at the Presidential Villa for over two hours. They were led to the President’s office by the Chief of Staff, Gen. Jones Arogbofa.

    Jonathan described the “incident” as sad.

    Speaking at the inauguration of the National Conference in Abuja, he said: “As we were preparing for this inauguration, a very sad incident happened on Saturday.”

    He called for a minute silence “for the young lads who died on Saturday”.

    It was learnt that Jonathan tongue lashed the two officials for about 20 minutes. They were reportedly dumbfounded throughout the session.

    They could not give cogent reasons for the deaths.

    The President was reported to have told them: “I am highly disappointed with your performance. I cannot tolerate this.”

    It was learnt that the President’s mood suggested that the time was up for the two officials to resign – if they could read his countenance.

    A highly-placed source said: “We have never seen the President in such a foul mood at the Villa. The case was compounded by the fact that the Minister and the Immigration chief could not give cogent reasons.

    “They were just blabbing.

    “At the end of the 20-minute session, the Minister and Parradang wobbled out of the President’s office, uncertain of their jobs.”

    Another source in the Presidency said: “The President’s reaction suggested that they cannot go scot free at all. If they do not quit, he might show them the way out of government.

    “What the President did was to tongue lash them, leave them to ponder and take the path of honour by quitting; otherwise they will be removed without dignity.”

    It was gathered that Moro and Parradang were still trying to lobby some governors and highly-placed Nigerians to keep their jobs

    Security agencies have started probing the involvement of a company, Drexel Nig. limited, in the recruitment tragedy.

    A top official of one of the security agencies said: “From our preliminary findings, over N7billion was collected from 734,000 candidates who applied for about 4,556 vacancies.

    “We are investigating how the company was engaged, the terms and the service rendered to the NIS.”

    The peaceful protest at the Kaduna State command of the NIS was led by NLC Vice-President Isa Aremu. The protesters arrived at the NIS office early in the morning and blocked its entrance. They prevented the staff from entering their offices.

    The union members carried placards that contained various inscriptions and a letter of protest which they wanted to deliver to the state controller.

    However, the officers on duty barred the workers from the premises, telling them that the controller was not in the office.

    Aremu demanded compensation for the families of the 19 victims.

    He urged Jonathan to demonstrate that no life of an applicant would further be wasted at any recruitment centre.

    He said: “The President should take action so as to prevent shameless exhibition of incompetence and non-service delivery by some of his ministers.”

    The Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights (CASER), led the Abuja protest.

    The Executive Director of CASER, Mr Frank Tietie, led some members to the NHRC headquarters.

    Tietie urged the authorities to probe the incident and bring those found wanting to book.

    He said lack of crowd control measures and medical emergency personnel at the centres across the country was a violation of the applicants’ rights to life and dignity.

    Tietie said preventable deaths, occasioned by negligence and inaction, were rife in the country.

    He called for urgent action to prevent a recurrence.

    The CASER executive director submitted a petition addressed to the UN Human Rights Commission to the Executive Secretary of NHRC, Prof. Ben Angwe, for onward transmission.

    Angwe described the incident as “sad, not only to the commission but also the Federal Government and country at large”.

    The commission is investigating into incident.

    Angwe expressed regret that the exercise, which was meant to provide jobs for Nigerians and reduce unemployment, resulted in avoidable deaths.

    He said that the incident had kick-started a new beginning in the campaign for the protection of the fundamental human rights of Nigerians.

    He assured the group of NHRC’s commitment to assisting in identifying the victims and ensuring they were compensated by the government.

    The NHRC executive secretary praised CASER for its action, saying it indicated that groups were heeding the commission’s call for sensitisation of Nigerians to their human rights.

    The NLC said the congress was saddened and shocked to learn of the avoidable deaths.

    Said Omar: “It is grossly unfair for the Immigration Service to have invited thousands of our youths to physically present themselves to compete to fill a miserly 4000 vacancies.

    “Nothing but crass opportunism can explain this heartless scam.

    “A more rational and discerning recruitment process could easily have reduced the number by insisting on raising minimum standards.

    “The explanation by the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, that 520,000 applicants were invited for 4,556 spaces and that the applicants died in a stampede due to impatient and non-adherence to laid down orderly procedure, is rather weak and untenable.’’

    Omar noted that to have invited so many applicants for such few spaces was unacceptable.

    He called on the Federal Government to investigate the NIS, query the methods it adopted and the discretion it exercised in conducting the programme.

    “It is also important to remind government of the danger that unemployment, particularly unemployment of qualified youths, represents.

    “We, therefore, call on the government to tackle unemployment with increased commitment, and appropriately sanction those who have had a hand in causing these scandalous deaths.”

    The Trade Union Congress (TUC) described the stampede as a national disaster. It called for an investigation.

     

  • Immigration’s border patrol planes grounded

    Immigration’s border patrol planes grounded

    The two planes used by the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) for border patrol are no longer in operation due to long time abandonment, Minister of Interior Abba Moro was told yesterday.

    Managing Director of Dornier Aviation Nigeria (DANA) Ltd Mark Snoxell said yesterday that the planes could still fly for the next 10 years if they were rescuscitated.

    He spoke when he visited the minister in Abuja yesterday.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that Moro directed the Comptroller-General, Nigeria Immigration Service, Mr David Parradang, to work out modalities for resuscitating the air border patrol unit of the service.

    .He said the resuscitation of the unit was necessary to patrol the country’s borders to address security challenges.

    The Minister said illegal immigrants in the country ‘have been identified as perpetrators of various acts of terrorism”.

    He said that there was a need also to resume air border patrol as vehicular patrol and deployment of high-tech surveillance equipment was not enough to address the present security challenges.

    “We have taken steps to resuscitate our border patrol by setting up a committee to examine our preparations for air border patrol against the existence and operations of our aircraft patrol units.

    “The abandonment of these aircraft for some time now has made them unworthy to fly and with the visit of Dornier Aviation, we can start doing something immediately to revive our aircraft operations,” he said

    Moro said due to paucity of funds, the Federal Government had adopted Public Private Partnership to protect and maintain its assets all over the country.