SAN FRANCISCO, June 11, (THEWILL) – A former Comptroller-General, CG, of the Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, Mr. David Paradang has told a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja that Comptrollers in each state of the federation, “received alert of N300, 000.00” a day before the conduct of the botched recruitment exercise that claimed about 20 lives.
Paradang, who insisted that he was not fully carried along by the former Minister of Interior, Mr. Abba Moro alleged that the “alert” was sponsored by the company the ex-Minister, Moro, awarded the contract to recruit for the NIS, Drexel Tech Nigeria Ltd.
The former NIS boss disclosed this while testifying before the trial judge, Nnamdi Dimgba as the star prosecution witness, PW-1, of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which is prosecuting the former Minister over alleged N676million job scam.
The Comptroller-General who was in charge of the NIS from June 2013 to August 2015, spoke on Friday while being led in evidence by prosecution lawyer, Aliyu Yusuf, stating that the service was ill-prepared for the botched 2014 recruitment exercise in which 165 job seekers were injured.
According to him, we had no money to fund the recruitment exercise. But on 14 March, 2014, I was told by NIS zonal controllers that they had received N300, 000 each from the service’s board.
“The N300, 000 was inadequate as it could not even rent a venue for the recruitment exercise. There were supposed to be ambulances and allowances for the NIS personnel who conducted the job exercise.”
On how he learnt about the day of the exercise, Paradang said: “At about the third week of January 2014 we were at the National Assembly with all the senior officers of the Ministry when the 1st defendant (Morro) announced that March 15th 2014 has been fixed for recruitment exercise which was very surprising to all of us.
“After we went back to the office and told the management team of the date of the recruitment exercise that was been announced by Morro we began to get ready.
“But we started to mobilise road in state command to begin together ready thinking ahead of time to secure venue and make adequate preparation,” he stated.
The former Immigration boss added that he was in Plateau State with Morro, on the day of the exercise, when he started receiving text messages, informing him of stampede at the venue of the recruitment exercise nationwide
“Immediately I heard this I quickly asked for permission from the Minister to allow me return to Abuja to coordinate and he agreed and I left.
“I was calling each command to give me a verbal report and directed them to write the report at a close of day we had fifteen casualties and 165 injured people.
“After this, there was national outcry and we went from ward to ward and promised to pay the bills thereafter.
“The National Assembly later had an open hearing on the case. At the National Assembly, we were asked to state our position and the president spoke in sober tone to the nation.
“The President (Good luck Jonathan) said that the family of those who died will be given 3 employment and those who were injured will be given a job.
“The President set up a presidential committee to conduct a fresh exercise except the deceased people who were separated from the exercise.
“Immediately after the letters were sent (letters of recruitment to victims’ family members) the board (board of the Interior Ministry) asked them (the relatives of the deceased victims) to bring back the letters of appointment. The ministry said that the appointments given to them were illegal,” said Paradang.
Those equally on trial over the alleged recruitment fraud are the former Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Interior, Mrs. Anastasia Daniel-Nwobia and a Deputy Director in the Ministry, Mr. F. O Alayebami. The defendants are charged alongside the firm, Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited, on an 11-count charge.
They are accused of defrauding 675, 675 graduate applicants of about N675,675,000 having been made to pay N1000 each as processing fees for 5,000 (five thousand) job openings.
The four defendants were also accused of breaching the Public Procurement Act, No. 65 of 2007 in the award of the contract for the organisation of the recruitment test to Drexel Tech Nigeria Ltd.
