FG Orders Fresh Screening for Aggrieved Immigration ‘Recruits’

• Okiro okays aptitude tests for police recruitment

Dele Ogbodo and Maryann Abin in Abuja with agancy report

The federal government wednesday ordered that fresh screening exercise be conducted for the 2,000 aggrieved ‘recruits’ who claimed to have been employed by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) since 2015.

Reacting to the 2,000 protesters in Abuja who claim to have been employed by the Service in 2015, the Comptroller General of NIS, Mr. Muhammed Babandede, while addressing Journalist in his office, said government has asked the dispersed 2000 ‘recruits’ of the service.

Babandede said such screening was not new to the law enforcement agency like immigration service, adding that: they all must attend the fresh screening exercise beginning from next Monday, or forget about the job.

According to him, the service, had earlier announced in a statement that the decision to re-screen the dispersed recruits was reached in the aftermath of an emergency meeting of the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration, and Prisons Services Board (CDFIPB).

Babandede said the 2,000 dispersed officers were expected to go through necessary security clearance, undergo a drug-test, certificate verification as well as the implementation of CDFIPB policy on age on rank beginning from next week.

He said: “The aggrieved recruits should realise that those who recruited them went beyond the instruction of the former president, adding that “those who committed the offence have been punished.
“The only condition we gave them is to pass through certain test and they don’t want to pass through that test.

“Do you blame government for that? I think we should commend the president for approving this kind of procedure.

“It is very commendable; we could have started fresh recruitment with other people but we said we want to take them alone, when we screen them and they pass, the screen, they will get their jobs.
The NIS boss promised that due process would be strictly followed in the new recruitment process which is only for the 2000 that are yet to get their status properly harmonised because of the mistake of past administration.

Meanwhile, the Chairman, Police Service Commission (PSC), Mr. Mike Okiro, yesterday said the aptitude test for recruitment into the Nigeria Police Force across the country had been successful.

He said this in a statement issued by Mr. Ikechukwu Ani, the Head, Press and Public Relations of the commission in Abuja.

Okiro, who is also the National Coordinator for the recruitment, said reports from the aptitude test centres showed that the exercise was orderly.

He noted that there were initial hitches on the first day of the exercise, but that it had normalised on the second day.

The PSC chairman explained that some of the problems were related to applicants who did not receive invitation through emails for the tests.

He said the commission had issued a statement, asking such candidates to crosscheck their names on the master list pasted at the venues.

The commission boss added that some of the applicants did not have email accounts but generated one at business centres which they never went back to check.

Okiro said state coordinators were directed to admit applicants who had no copies of their invitation throsugh emails but had their names in the master list.

The chairman said the commission would begin screening of documents and physical attributes of the specialists on August 29.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that the commission had shortlisted 110,469 applicants out of the 338,250 invited for the just concluded screening in 36 states of the federation and the FCT for the tests.

The tests, which started last Monday, ended today at various centres across the country.