The
All Progressives Congress (APC) has said it is greatly distressed at the deaths
of 19 job seekers at the venues of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) job
test on Saturday, calling it a direct consequence of 15 years of misrule by the
PDP-led federal government.
In
a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its Interim National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the Minister of Interior must
bear direct responsibility for the needless deaths by immediately stepping down
from his post, if he has any honour left, or be fired.
It
said, however, that the overall responsibility is that of President Goodluck
Jonathan, who now seems to be bent on leaving a dubious legacy of bad
leadership that has led to a grim harvest of deaths from insecurity, widespread
violence and now job stampede, among others.
APC
commiserated with the families of the victims and wished those who were injured
a speedy recovery.
''Despite
huge yearly budgets rolled out since 1999, the PDP-led federal government has
failed to create jobs for our teeming youth, and the number of those who are
jobless has now reached such an alarming rate that a job emergency may have to
be declared to avert an impending cataclysm.
''Massive
mindless looting of the public treasury has seen funds that could have been
used to create millions of jobs end up in the deep pockets of corrupt
government and PDP officials, without any consequence for the thieves, while
the incompetent federal government led by a clueless President continues to
deceive the public with cooked figures showing job creation where indeed there
have been job losses,.
''Today,
sadly, the truth has been laid bare: 5,000 or so vacancies declared by NIS have
attracted over six million applicants, from which over half a million was
shortlisted, according to published reports, and the desperation of our youth
to eke out a decent living has been exploited by a villainous government that
forced each applicant to cough out 1,000 Naira, thus raking in 6 billion Naira
from jobless people,'' the party said.
It
said that the Ministry of Interior has many questions to answer over the
apparently-shoddy arrangements made for the job tests in 37 venues nationwide.
''Is
it true that the Minister directly presided over the recruitment and
money-making venture? Could this have been part of the government's
fund-raising measures for the 2015 elections? Why will a government seek to
profit from a malaise it created by charging hapless job seekers 1,000 Naira each?
Why was a huge number of applicants invited for only 5,000 jobs or less? Why
was such a shoddy arrangement made for the test when so many people were
invited? Could the test not have been done in batches to avoid a stampede? How
much indeed was realized from this glaring extortion of job seekers? What
happened to the money?
These
are some of the questions begging for answers.
''An
investigation into the needless deaths of our youth, under a government that
has failed them in every respect, must seek to answer those questions and
recommend ways to avoid a recurrence. At least if a government cannot create
jobs, it must neither profit from its incompetence nor send the victims of its
ineptitude to their early graves,'' APC said.
Alhaji
Lai Mohammed
Interim
National Publicity Secretary
All
Progressives Congress (APC)
Lagos,
March 16th 2014
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