Jonathan Questions Moro and NIS Boss

President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday queried Abba Moro, Minister of Interior and the David Paradang, Comptroller-General, Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS.

The duo was queried over the stampede that claimed not less than 18 lives at the venues of the recruitment exercise conducted by the NIS on Saturday, March 15.

Moro and Paradang were summoned to the Presidential Villa on Monday. On arrival, they met with Jones Arogbofa, chief of staff to the President for about three hours.

At the end of the meeting, Arogbofa led the minister and the NIS boss to meet with the President for about an hour.

Prior to their arrival, Jonathan had met with Muhammed Abubakar, Inspector-General of Police, behind closed-doors where the Police boss was said to have been ordered to investigate the NIS tragedy.

In the meantime, family members of some of the deceased applicants

have demanded for the release of the bodies of their loved ones for burial.

Mohammed Hakeem, who lost his pregnant sister in a stampede during the exercise at the National Stadium, Abuja, venue of the recruitment test, disclosed that the deceased was defrauded of N150,000 in a job scam last year before the disheartening incident of last Saturday struck his family.

“It is sad that people were made to suffer and die for jobs that have probably been allocated to the children of highly placed individuals. The government should be sensitive to the plight of the ordinary Nigerians,” Hakeem said.

Moro who had drawn the ire of Nigerians over his initial comments on the incident, consoled the grieving families while pleading for understanding of Nigerians so that together the situation can be salvaged and a foundation can be laid to forestall any future recurrence.

The minister argued that unruly applicants and people who turned up for the exercise, uninvited were the cause of the tragedy.

He explained that the stadium was chosen for the recruitment exercise on account of the physical exercise that applicants were to go through, stressing that this was a vital component of enlistment requirement into the NIS.

Moro clarified that 526,650 persons applied for the exercise nationwide, adding that arrangement was made for only that number as opposed to the large crowd seen at different centers across the country.