379,000 Applicants Jostle for 4,120 Immigration Jobs

By Kuni Tyessi 

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has disclosed that a total number of 370,000 applied for the 4,120 vacancies available for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and all 774 local governments.

The Comptroller General, Mr. Muhammad Babandede who disclosed this yesterday in Abuja, said out of the total number, 6,145 were invited for the training.

He stated that all successful officers must undergo a drug test, adding that no chance will be given to any applicant who is already addicted to drugs.

He said there was no going back on the May 31, deadline for the clearance of backlog of passports, adding that as so far, 23,907 were yet to be collected by applicants.

The CG added that the Ikoyi office has the highest number of yet-to- be-all collected passports which were over 7,000.

He added that the office is set to produce between 130,000 and 150,000 passports between yesterday and May 31, while locally, 58,000 will be produced to beat the deadline.

He said there would be no penalties against applicants who failed to collect their passports before May 31.

Babandede also disclosed that a total of 41,000 new passports will be introduced  into the system, adding that the highest production will be in Ikoyi, followed by Alausa.

“397,000 applied for the jobs and there are only 4,120 slots. Each local government was represented and 10 percent in each state were also invited based on merit and federal character.

“So far, only three fake applicants were discovered and the cases were handed over to the police. The exercise will be at the end of this month and each officer who is successful must be made to undergo  drug test.

“130,000 passports will be produced and officers will work to ensure that we beat the deadline. We are going to work from 6am- 6pm including weekends to clear the backlog” he said.