The Senate Tuesday expressed grave concern over the escalating unemployment rate in Nigeria as manifested in last Saturdays recruitment tragedy, observing that lack of job opportunities could provoke a reenactment of the French Revolution or even the more recent Arab Spring which led to violent change of governments in the Middle East and North Africa. This is just as the National Assembly condemned the death of 16 applicants at the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) exercise Saturday and ordered a public hearing into the incident. In the Senate, the Committee on Interior was directed to organise a public hearing on the matter and report its findings to the chamber in two weeks. The Senate, which also resolved to constitute a committee with the mandate to evolve a holistic road map for employment in Nigeria, observed a minutes silence in honour of the dead. It also condoled with their families and sympathised with those who were injured during the incident. The resolutions followed a motion moved by the Senate Committee Chairman on Interior, Senator Atiku Bagudu, during which he regretted that the recruitment exercise claimed the lives of some applicants while others were injured. He argued that no fewer than 15 lives were officially reported lost in the incident. Bagudu, who traced the exercise to the approval granted by a former Head of Service of the Federation in 2011 for the recruitment of 4,556 personnel into various cadres of NIS, gave a breakdown of the employment structure. According to him, a total number of 1,343 graduates were to be employed as Assistant Superintendents I and II; 1,680 holders of Ordinary National Diplomas (OND) and National Certificates in Education (NCE) were to be employed as Assistant Inspectors I; and 1,531 others with Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) qualification were to be employed as Immigration Assistants III. Bagudu, who recalled that following the federal governments approval for the recruitment, attempts by the immediate past Comptroller-General of NIS, Mrs. Rose Uzoma, to effect the decision failed as a result of the irregularities which trailed the process. He further said the cancellation of the initial process led to the engagement of Drexel Technical Global to handle the recruitment with N1,000 charged each applicant who applied through an online platform. Describing the N1,000 charge as a novelty in the recruitment of applicants into the NIS, he added that as many as 700,772 applied for the jobs, of which 70,000 of them were registered and scheduled to write the aptitude test in the Abuja Stadium. He also said that while the committee visited the National Hospital, Abuja, to see the victims, it saw seven corpses as well as nine other persons out of 11 said to have sustained injuries during the Abuja stampede. In supporting the motion, Senator Sola Adeyeye (Osun Central), who lamented that one of the two applicants who died in Osun State was the first graduate in his family, ignored pleas from Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the session to calm down, saying I must not be cooler than this when Nigerians are dying. Adeyeye, who said situations had gone bad in Nigeria to the extent that citizens needed to begin to put fire under their leaders including me, added that what played out on Saturday was an indication that Nigeria was heading towards the Arab Spring because Nigerians are hungry. While debunking allegations that senators were allocated slots in the recruitment process, Adeyeye shouted that he was never given any slot. Also speaking on the motion, Senator Smart Adeyemi (Kogi West), who described the tragedy as disheartening and painful, lamented that things had become so bad in Nigeria that the average citizen no longer believes that he can apply for a job and get it without the intervention of an influential person. He said it was this mindset that had led to the desperation exhibited by applicants on Saturday, adding, Because people believed that they must struggle for the job. Adeyemi, who said the principle of merit had been consigned into the dustbin in Nigeria, noted that Saturdays experience had shown that the nation was in the grip of an acute employment crisis. He also criticised the perception that everything in Nigeria must come from Abuja, and advised the federal government to stop saving external reserves while people are left to suffer. In his own contribution, Senator Olubunmi Adetumbi (Ekiti North) acknowledged that there was scarcity in Nigeria, but added that this scarcity was not of bread but of unemployment, warning that unless the situation was quickly brought under control, Nigeria risked its own version of the French revolution which he said altered the entire course of the countrys history. He warned that unemployment and hunger in Nigeria had brought Nigerians under the coalition of the oppressed and when they form a coalition, all they need is organisation and what will follow is a revolution. He added: The issue before us is leadership. If you juxtapose the claims of economic growth with what happened on Saturday, we dont need anybody to tell us that there is policy failure. Our economy is not working. We are not creating jobs. That is why 700,000 people are chasing 4,000 jobs. The federal government must take responsibility for failure of policies. In his contribution, Senator Abdul Ningi (Bauchi Central) suggested that the National Assembly must set aside between 15 and 25 per cent of the nations total budget to address unemployment, while Senator Ita Enang (Akwa Ibom North-east) stuck to the contributions of other speakers, stating: Revolution is staring Nigeria in the face. While suggesting that the Senate should devote two special days to the issue of unemployment, Enang noted that the rate of unemployment in the country was worse than the battle of insurgency currently being fought by Nigeria. In the House of Representatives, the lower chamber also condemned the deaths of the applicants on Saturday, describing the entire recruitment process as a fraud. A cross-section of legislators, who contributed to the debate at plenary, raised questions about the exercise which was held simultaneously across the country, saying both the Interior Ministry and NIS deliberately sold thousands of forms to job seekers, even though the vacancies available were less than those who sought the jobs. Responding to members contributions on the issue, the House Speaker, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, mandated the Committees on Interior, Labour, Public Service Matters and that of Justice to probe the tragic incident. The House also appealed to the federal government to liaise with states and local governments to evolve a job creation scheme that would be less cumbersome and friendly to the Nigerian youths. The House also resolved that subsequent recruitment by any federal agency must be conducted in an environment that is conducive and advocated that future processes must be through electronic mediums.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 06:55:58 +0000
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