Jonathan Cancels Immigration Recruitment

* Offers automatic jobs to injured applicants, 3 relations of each victim  

President Goodluck Jonathan has directed the complete cancellation of Saturday's recruitment exercise of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS).

Information Minister Labaran Maku disclosed this to State House correspondents today after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.

The minister said the council devoted the meeting to express grief over the death of applicants who lost their lives to stampedes during the exercise.

Maku said the council regretted the incident and expressed condolences to the families of the victims and sympathised with the injured.

He said the president announced
automatic employment for three relations of each of the victims, with one beneficiary to be a female.

The minister added that Jonathan also directed that automatic employment be given to all the applicants who sustained injuries during the exercise.

He said the president ordered a fresh recruitment exercise into the NIS.

The new exercise , whose date he said would be announced later, would be conducted by a committee chaired by the chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission. Other

Other members of the committee, according to him, are the Comptroller-General of NIS, representatives of the Inspector-General of Police, representatives of the Commandant General of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, representatives of the Director General of the State Security Service , representatives of the Nigeria Prisons Service and representatives of the Federal Road Safety Corps.

Maku however parried questions on why the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, was excluded from the committee, whether the government would refund the N1,000 paid for registration by each of the applicants and whether the government intended to set up a committee to investigate the circumstances that led to the applicants' death.