The Minister of Interior, Mr. Abba Moro and Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service, David Parradang, were yesterday tongue lashed by President Goodluck Jonathan over the death of 18 applicants at the venues for Saturdays recruitment test.

“I am highly disappointed with your performance. I cannot tolerate this,” he told the two officials who could not provide satisfactory explanation.

At the session which lasted less than thirty minutes, both Moro and Parradang were mostly dumbfounded.

Jonathan, who later in the day at the inauguration of the National Conference in Abuja, described the incident as sad, said the disaster would be investigated.

The Minister of Interior, Mr. Abba Moro and Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service, David Parradang, were yesterday tongue lashed by President Goodluck Jonathan over the death of 18 applicants at the venues for Saturdays recruitment test.

“I am highly disappointed with your performance. I cannot tolerate this,” he told the two officials who could not provide satisfactory explanation.

At the session which lasted less than thirty minutes, both Moro and Parradang were mostly dumbfounded.

Jonathan, who later in the day at the inauguration of the National Conference in Abuja, described the incident as sad, said the disaster would be investigated.

“As we were preparing for this inauguration, a very sad incident happened on Saturday, the president said.

He then called for a minute silence for those who lost their lives.

Speaking to journalists on Monday night, a source hinted that from the president’s tone, the two officials are “as good as gone.”

According to him, Mr. Jonathan deliberately waited till Monday morning to see if they would toe the honourable path by forwarding their resignation letters.

“Since that did not happen, he summoned them to the Villa and you know what that means.

“If you recall, former INEC Chairman, Maurice Iwu, former Police IG, Hafiz Ringim were invited by the President before they were fired. So we may see a repeat of those situations in a matter of days,” he added.

Moro, who already ruled out resignation, had blamed the victims for the stampede that led to their deaths.

“The applicants lost their lives due to impatience; they did not follow the laid down procedures spelt out to them before the exercise,” he said.

“Many of them jumped through the fences of affected centres and did not conduct themselves in an orderly manner to make the exercise a smooth one. This caused stampede and made the environment unsecured”

But both officials have been battling to save their jobs. While Moro has reached out to his benefactor and Senate President, David Mark, the Pankshin-born CGI has called on Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang for help.

Meanwhile, protests were held yesterday in Abuja and Kaduna State over the incident.

In Kaduna, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) led a protest to the NIS, while in Abuja, a civil society organisation, marched on to the office of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

The peaceful protest at the Kaduna State command of the NIS was led by NLC Vice-President, Isa Aremu. The protesters arrived at the NIS office early enough and blocked its entrance. They prevented the staff from entering their offices.

Members carried placards that contained different inscriptions and a letter of protest which they wanted to deliver to the state comptroller.

However, the officers on duty shut them out, insisting that the comptroller was not within the premises.

Aremu, who spoke on behalf of others demanded compensation for the families of the deceased.

“The President should take action so as to prevent shameless exhibition of incompetence and non-service delivery by some of his Ministers,” the official said.

On the other hand, the Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights (CASER), organised the Abuja protest.

The Executive Director of CASER, Mr Frank Tietie, who led members to the NHRC headquarters, urged authorities to probe the incident and prosecute anyone found culpable.

He said lack of crowd control measures and medical emergency personnel at the centres across the country was a violation of the applicants’ rights to life and dignity.

The CASER boss also submitted a petition addressed to the UN Human Rights Commission to the Executive Secretary of NHRC, Prof. Ben Angwe, for onward transmission.

Responding, Angwe described the incident as “sad, not only to the Commission but also the Federal Government and the country at large”.

Disclosing that the Commission has commenced investigation into the incident, he expressed regret that the exercise, which was meant to provide jobs for young Nigerians, resulted in avoidable loss of lives.

He assured the group of NHRC’s commitment to assisting in identifying the victims and ensuring they were compensated by the government.

Relatively, security agencies have started probing the involvement of a company, Drexel Nigeria Limited, in Saturday’s tragedy.

“From our preliminary findings, over N7billion was collected from 734,000 candidates who applied for about 4,556 vacancies. We are investigating how the company was engaged, the terms and the service rendered to the NIS, a security official is quoted as saying.

Many Nigerians have condemned the exercise, wondering why 520,000 job seekers were invited to write an assessment test for 4, 556 jobs.

count | 22

David Shikfu Paradang under pressure as Jonathan expresses his disappointment