Fresh recruitments at immigration service

The NIS said in a statement that the exercise, which was scheduled to begin nationwide from February, 9, 2015, would be concluded by March 22, 2015. Unlike the previous tragic episode, the applicants this time would not be required to pay a fee and must be done online. About a year ago, a similar exercise was […]

The NIS said in a statement that the exercise, which was scheduled to begin nationwide from February, 9, 2015, would be concluded by March 22, 2015. Unlike the previous tragic episode, the applicants this time would not be required to pay a fee and must be done online.
 About a year ago, a similar exercise was called off after more than 20 people were killed at stampedes at several interview venues.  Many more were injured.   About 562,000 applicants paid N1000 each to take part in the aptitude test in the hope of filling the advertised 4,000 vacancies. The government made offers of automatic jobs to families of the deceased, while all applicants injured were to get a slot each in the next exercise.   A government panel was given 12 weeks to organise the exercise, and to ensure that three family members of each deceased applicant from the aborted exercise, at least one of whom must be female, were given immediate and automatic employment. Those pledges have not been redeemed. Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, recently said the ministry was still expecting the committee to conclude its job before enforcing the president’s directives.   Moro suggested that the delay was due the ‘cumbersome nature’ of arriving at a final list of those who qualified. “Don’t forget that immediately the president made the pronouncement, a lot of persons started claiming that they were victims of the exercise and so, we are inundated with list of persons who claimed that they were wounded or their loved ones died in the process,” he said.
Moro’s excuses notwithstanding, it is inexcusable that a 12-week process has dragged unresolved for almost a year, and is only now being rebvived on the eve of the general elections to call for applications for another recruitment exercise.  Using this as another avenue to play politics is ill-advised.
While the NIS warms up for the fresh exercise, the government should also step up efforts to live up to it pledges to compensate victims and families of victims of last year’s tragedy. In calling the new exercise, efforts must be made to avoid all the mistakes that led to the fatal stampedes. The exercise should be closely guarded and monitored to avoid being hijacked by dubious persons under the guise of consultancy. Making the application free has removed the money factor which may have been why the organizers left it open to all-comers, leading to the large number of applicants recorded last year.  The NIS should be forthcoming with precise information of what is expected of applicants. The number of vacancies and positions available must be made known. The recruitment exercise should be decentralized and designated venues must be secured to prevent a repeat of last year, where stadiums were used and applicants had to write the test on the floor. The venues must also be provided with proper crowd control measures. Regardless of the volume of applications, a reasonable level of screening should be conducted, using transparent and merit-based criteria to prune down the figure in order to ensure that only the most qualified are invited for the test.
 It is disappointing that no one has been held to account for last year’s failed exercise, despite glaring evidence of poor judgement at ministerial and departmental levels.