Candidates for the Nigerian Immigration
Service examination at the National Stadium,
Surulere, Lagos and Moro
Last Friday, the Senate Committee on Interior
rounded off a two-day public hearing on the death
of 16 Nigerian youths during the e-recruitment
exercise by the Nigerian Immigration Service on
March 15. SUNDAY ABORISADE reports that buck-
passing marks much of the proceedings
Tension and anxiety enveloped the large hall in the
new Senate wing, venue of the two-day public
hearing of the Senate Committee on Interior
probing the unfortunate incidents of March 15, in
which 16 job seekers lost their lives during the
recruitment exercise into the Nigerian Immigration
Service. Interested parties — including the Minister
of Interior, Mr. Abba Moro; Comptroller-General of
the NIS, Mr. David Parradang; representatives of
the firm that conducted the ill-fated exercise, and
officials of the Federal Character Commission,
Office of the Head of Service and heads of
agencies under the supervision of the Ministry of
Interior, among others — were seated as early as
9:30am, expecting the Senate President, David
Mark, to declare the event open.
Mark was represented on the occasion by the
Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba. After
Ndoma-Egba delivered the Senate President’s
speech, the stage was set for a six-hour stormy
session that was full of suspense and anxiety.
The representative of the Head of Service, who
simply introduced himself as, Yemi, gives a
background to the entire saga when he said the
NIS applied to his office for waivers to fill vacant
positions in the service sometime in 2011.
According to Yemi, the NIS provided credible
justification, particularly the need to expand the
scope of its operations, responsibilities and
involvement in various task forces to counter
insecurity and insurgency in the country.
Based on this and in particular, the ability of the
NIS to pay the remuneration of those to be
employed, the office of the HoS granted waivers to
fill 2,050 positions and 4,556 positions in 2011 and
2012 respectively.
The NIS, after securing the waivers, was required
to conduct the employment exercise in line with
the official guidelines through its board, in
accordance with the provisions in the Act that
established the board.
Yemi points out, “The role of the Head of Civil
Service of the Federation ends here, as he has no
statutory role in the recruitment exercise of any
ministry, department or agency once they have
satisfied the criteria for the granting of the waiver
to fill vacancies in their establishments.”
The representative of the Chairman, Federal
Character Commission, Mr. Uche Diogu, notes that
the FCC is empowered by Section 4 (1) G (I) of the
FCC Establishment Act, Laws of the Federation of
Nigeria 2004, to ensure that all MDAs have clear
criteria indicating the conditions to be fulfilled and
comprehensive guidelines on the procedure for
employment.
Diogu says, “In a letter dated July 21, 2011, the
NIS wrote the FCC, informing it of a waiver granted
to it by the Office of the HoS for them to fill total
vacancies of 1,750 urgently in view of the Boko
Haram threat to security in the north axis.”
He says the NIS therefore requested the
Commission to grant it permission to conduct the
exercise and for the new employees to resume
work by September 2011. The request, he says,
was granted and the approval was communicated
to the NIS in a letter dated July 25, 2011, stating
that the NIS should forward the list of the
candidates to be invited for interview, indicating
their states of origin, sex, age, posts, and so on.
Diogu claims that more than four months after the
request was granted, NIS became incommunicado;
adding that the FCC therefore, in a letter dated
December 12, 2011, drew the attention of the NIS
to the non compliance and reminded it to comply
accordingly.
In addition, Diogu says, the Executive Chairman
directed that the NIS Comptroller-General be
summoned to an interactive session on the
recruitment exercise in a meeting scheduled for
Friday, December 16, 2011.
The then NIS Comptroller-General, Mrs. Rose
Uzoma, he claims, did not attend the meeting, nor
was there any further information on the scheduled
recruitment drive. This prompted the Executive
Chairman to send another invitation to the CG for a
meeting with the Committee on Defence and
Foreign Affairs of the FCC.
The meeting was scheduled for Tuesday, August 8,
2012. Again, Diogu says, the CG could not attend
due to other official engagements.
Instead, she asked for a rescheduling, which was
granted and slated for October 4, 2012. Uzoma,
alongside one Mr. S.O. Olowa, were present.
Uzoma denied the involvement of the NIS in any
recruitment exercise.
The NIS later wrote another letter dated October
11, 2012, requesting certificate of compliance in
respect of the recruitment exercise. In the letter,
the NIS allegedly referred to an earlier letter
purportedly written on February 20, 2011
requesting the certificate of compliance.Diogu says
no such letter was received by the FCC and that
the FCC, because of that, did not oblige the
certificate of compliance as requested in the NIS
letter under reference because the agency did not
forward the list of successful candidates, as
required by the FCC, to ascertain the level of
compliance.
On December 13, 2012, he says, the NIS wrote to
request a waiver not to publicise the scheduled
recruitment exercise for security reasons. Diogu
says the waiver was granted but the approval had
not been communicated to the NIS before the
exercise was put on hold.
He says, “On December 24, 2012, the Chairman of
the House of Representatives Committee on FCC
also wrote to inform the Commission of the
suspension of the recruitment exercise. On March
5, 2013, the Commission wrote to invite the
Comptroller-General of the NIS, Mr. David
Parradang to an interactive meeting scheduled for
March 20, 2013.
“The meeting was held on March 26, 2013 and the
CG was represented by the Acting DCG, Mr.
Bakare Benson. The meeting was called to discuss
the suspended recruitment exercise and to advise
the NIS appropriately. “On March 27, 2013, the
Commission held another meeting with the
Director/Secretary of the Civil Defence, Fire,
Immigration and Prison Services Board. This was a
follow-up to the meeting held with the NIS the
previous day.
“The Commission was informed on the occasion
that the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, had given
a go-ahead for the conduct of the recruitment
exercise which was earlier put on hold. On June 4,
2013, the Commission held another meeting with
the Acting CG, Mr. Bewas Musa, and the DCG,
Bakare Benson.
“The FCC was informed of the opening of an official
website for on-line registration for the recruitment
exercise. The issue of logistics and need to
improve upon past exercises was emphasised. In a
letter dated September 13, 2013, the Commission
invited the CG for another meeting scheduled for
September 19, 2013.
“The meeting could not hold because the CG was
said to have been invited for a similar meeting by
the Minister of Interior.”
Diogu reveals that the need for openness, fairness
and justice in the exercise formed the centre of a
courtesy call the FCC later paid to the Interior
Minister. In the interim, he says, the meeting with
the Acting CG was rescheduled for September 26,
2013 through a letter dated, September 2013. The
meeting also centred on the exercise and the need
to follow due process and federal character
principles.
On March 12, 2014, the FCC received information
that the recruitment exercise had been
rescheduled for March 15, 2014; following which
the Commission invited the board for an
emergency meeting on March 13, 2014. The
meeting, Diogu claims, was attended by the Civil
Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prison Services
Board.
The FCC reportedly raised a couple of
observations, in particular about the short notice
and advised the board to suspend the exercise to a
later date to give it enough publicity and put proper
logistics in place.Diogu adds that it was also
suggested that the exercise be held on separate
days for different cadres.
However, he claims, the Secretary to the Board
maintained that the exercise would take place
nationwide on March 15 because the board
chairman, who is also the interior minister, had
already made a commitment before the National
Assembly.
“We believe that the exercise was impromptu
because, two days to the exercise, on March 13,
we had yet to be informed about the number of
people they wanted to employ. We had not been
officially informed,” Diogu notes.
The Secretary of the NIS board, Mr. Sylvanus
Tapgun, however shocked the audience when he
said he also got to know of the plan to recruit to the
NIS through a newspaper advertisement.
He says he was officially informed of the
subsisting agreement between the ministry and the
consultant, Messrs Drexel Technology Nigeria
Limited on the e-recruitment exercise when his
attention was drawn to the newspaper
advertisement.
Tapgun says, “After a thorough study of the
agreement, it became clear to me that the
consultant had the responsibility of deploying the
portal and collection of N1,000 from each
applicant. The portal, which was opened for six
weeks, closed on October 27, 2013 after a week
extension due to a national holiday.
“At the closure of the portal, the consultant
submitted to the board an initial enrolment figure of
693,015 applications. Later, the consultant
submitted another figure of 710,110, which they
attributed to certain applications whose processing
had not been completed before the portal shut
down.”
Tapgun says the secretariat later made a proposal
to the minister, requesting the criteria for short-
listing the applicants, but the minister responded
that it was the responsibility of the consultant to
produce it.
“Consequently, the consultant produced the short
list of 522,652 candidates made up of 283,485
applicants for the Assistant Superintendent II;
108,911 for Asst. Superintendent/Asst. Inspectors;
and 130,256 Immigration Assistants,” Tapgun
discloses.
He says on January 22, 2014, he received
instructions to deal with the consultant’s request to
conduct the aptitude test for the shortlisted
candidates. Drexel had, in their proposal,
requested approval to conduct the aptitude test and
to provide personnel for the NIS to handle the
physical fitness test.
Tapgun continues, “The secretariat then invited the
consultant, the CG Immigration and the legal
adviser of the ministry to a meeting on the
consultant’s request. The CG suggested that
candidates should go to their states of origin to
write the test because of the huge numbers of
applicants, which would not only make for an even
spread, but it would also make it manageable.
“At the second meeting on February 7, 2014, the
detailed budget and tentative date for the
examination were carried out, agreed upon and
conveyed to the chairman for approval. Following
the approval, the consultants were requested to
provide funding for the exercise. The consultant
declined on the grounds that that it was not their
responsibility.”Tapgun adds that the secretariat
held a meeting with the NIS on how to actualise the
date; and that options like the staggering of the
exercise were considered.
He says, “It was proposed that the physical
exercise should hold on March 29, and the aptitude
test, postponed to between April 5 and 19, taking
the groups separately. However, the minister did
not approve the proposal because he said the
pronouncement had been made that the exercise
should hold on March 15.”
Tapgun reveals that the minister also directed that
applicants should write the examination in the
centres they had indicated in their applications,
which was contrary to the proposal of the steering
committee that they should go to their states of
origin in order to reduce huge population in some
centres.
The consultants eventually released N45m on
March 12, as against the earlier approved budget
of N210m. Worse still, the candidates were far in
excess of the figure supplied by the consultant.
Stampede was recorded in Abuja, Benin, Port
Harcourt and Minna, where some applicants lost
their lives.And, as if to exonerate the NIS, Tapgun
declares that the NIS board does not have an
independent way of monitoring the portal because
it doesn’t have a functional IT section.
“We do not have a means of monitoring how many
applications were collected and the amount of
money received from the applicants. We relied on
the consultant to give us the figure,” Tapgun
informs.
The Senate committee expresses shock about
Tapgun’s claims and concluded that the non
insistence of the steering committee on spreading
the exercise over some days, as well as its non
insistence on the N210m requested from the
consultants to conduct the exercise partly led to
the disaster recorded on March 15.
The chairman declares, “This is a shoddy
arrangement, since you have been planning the
exercise, yet you did not know where the funding
would come from.”The committee got more
revelations when the Permanent Member of the
Board of Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and
Prisons Services, Mr. Mustapha Zakariya, alleged
that the exercise was not approved by the board
because members had not met this year.
He reveals, “Even at a meeting we held last year,
we did not discuss the recruitment exercise though
it was listed as one of the agenda, it was
skipped.”Zakariya, who said he had been a
member of the board since 2008, also told the
committee that the decision to hire the consultant
was unilaterally taken by the minister, who is also
the chairman of the board.
Zakariya further alleged that the signature of the
former Secretary of the board, Dr. R. K. Attahiru, on
the agreement between the consultants and the
board, was actually forged because the man who
purportedly appended his signature had denied it.
The firm that developed the electronic platform for
the ill-fated recruitment exercise, Messrs Drexel
Technologies Nigeria Limited, however drew the
ire of the Senate committee when its
representative, Company Secretary/Legal Adviser,
Mr. Theodore Maiyaki, disclosed that the Ministry
of Interior did not advertise the multi-million naira
contract for competitive bidding by the public.
The committee faulted the award of the contract to
Drexel, which it says does not qualify to win such
a job going by its Memorandum of the Articles of
Association.Bagudu says Drexel’s Memorandum of
Articles of Association shows that it was
incorporated in 2011 to carry out business of
general contract, import financing and marketing of
all kinds of electrical appliances. It’s also licensed
to provide business of mechanised agriculture.
In its defence, Maiyaki says the company was
incorporated in 2011 and immediately bought the
majority shares into SW Global, which had been in
existence for over 10 years and doing the same
business as the contract awarded to it.
He urged the committee to look at the statement of
share capital and return of the lodgment of SW
Global in which Drexel has 80 million shares.
The committee faults this and insists that the
contract was not in order because it was not
signed between the ministry and SW Global which
had the proficiency to execute it.
Asked whether the job was advertised before he
got the contract, Maiyaki said no. He explains, “It
was an unsolicited proposal built around the
experiences of 2011 and 2012. We found out that
there was a recruitment crisis in the NIS at the
time. Because we have a solution which resolves
that kind of problem, we quickly sent in a proposal.
It was on the basis of our experience and
presentation that the ministry considered us
worthy of the contract.”
He adds that the company had provided similar
services in the past to the Nigerian Air Force and
the Navy. The committee also faulted the N1,000
each of the 710,000 applicants paid as application
fee, which amounted to N612m gain in one single
contract.
A member, Senator Hosea Agboola, notes, “Your
company collected N710.1m and you spent N98m
as the project cost. Are you now saying that your
company gained N612m in one business?
Maiyaki responds that out of the N710m generated
from the applicants, Drexel engaged payment
processors which had an agreement to deduct
N250 per applicant as processing charges. It
turned out that Drexel’s initial projection was to
capture an application base of about 50,000
applicants, but the deluge of the applications led to
the crash of website on more than three occasions.
Maiyaki further reveals that Section 321 of the
agreement provided the N1,000 as a cover in the
event that the projected number was exceeded,
“because the infrastructure we were using could
not have been limited to N98m.”
The committee therefore asked the consultant to
forward to it the breakdown of all additional
expenditure they incurred in the course of
expanding its infrastructure to accommodate extra
applications, apart from their initial target of
50,000.In their separate presentations of the NIS
commanders in the Federal Capital Territory, Edo,
Rivers, Niger, and Bauchi states, claim that they
were paid N300,000 each for the conduct of the
exercise.
They disclosed that those that were not shortlisted
for the exercise were thrice the number of official
candidates, and that that was what led to the
tragedy.
In his testimony before the committee, Parradang,
the Comptroller-General of the NIS, faults the
exercise and claims that he was not carried along
in the entire process. He stresses that he only got
to know about the date of the exercise on the day
the Interior Minister, appeared before the Senate
committee on the Interior to defend the 2014
budget of his ministry.
Parradang maintains that since the exercise was
planned by the office of the minister and Drexel
Technologies Nigeria Limited on April 30, 2013, it
wasn’t possible for the Federal Budget Office to
capture it in the 2014 Federal Government
Appropriation.
But the minister faults this deposition, insisting that
an agreement was reached and executed with the
vendor, Drexel Technologies Nigeria Limited. He
says the ministerial tender’s board subsequently
conveyed its approval of the award of the e-
recruitment platform to the NIS board.
Moro however apologised to Nigerians over the
circumstances that led to the death of 16 people, in
eight centres across the country, insisting that
adequate arrangement was put in place by his
ministry, the board and the NIS to conduct a
credible electronic recruitment into the NIS in
order to save the agency from the negative image
of job racketeering which had plagued it over the
years.
The Senate committee is expected to submit its
report within the next one week.
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