By: Olusegun Lawrence The Senate has ordered investigation into the stampede that occurred last Saturday during the Nigeria Immigration Service recruitment exercise that led to the death of about 20 job applicants nationwide.
Speaking at the plenary presided over by Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekwremadu, the senators who took turn to speak described the exercise as a national calamity.
Consequently, the presiding officer mandated the committee on Interior to conduct a public hearing on the matter and report back to plenary in one week
The Upper House also urged the executive to come out with a marshal plan to tackle the rate of unemployment in the country.
Ekweremadu, also stressed the need for the provision of social security for the unemployed in the country.
The chairman, committee on interior, Atiku Bagudu, sponsored the motion. While there was unanimous condemnation, the senators however disagreed on whether the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro should be sacked or not.
While the All Progressives Congress (APC) caucus called for the sack of the minister, others objected to it.
Objecting to the call for Moro’s sack, Victor Lar (Plateau PDP) opined that the real issue, which he noted was the unacceptable level of unemployment in the country, should be addressed.
He therefore, enjoined the Senate to resolve that the police and paramilitary organizations should undertake massive recruitments exercises.
In his contribution, Ita Enang noted that unemployment is worse than insurgency and called on the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency on employment.
Smart Adeyemi ( Kogi PDP) said all teh levels of government should device means of creating jobs, saying it should not be left to the federal government alone.
According to him, “We must restructure this country so that it is not only the federal government that is creating jobs. We don’t have to be uniform in our development process. We must create more states and create more states and create opportunities for the people.
“We should not concentrate in accumulating foreign reserves at the expense of developing our infrastructure and ministers should be summoned on a quarterly basis to explain their performance ”
Babafemi Ojudu, APC Caucus spokesperson in a statement noted that “The tragedy (NIS) has further graphically underlined the insensitivity of the President Jonathan administration to the plight of the people.
“In other countries, the deaths of these helpless applicants in such a circumstance would be enough for the Minister in charge to tender his resignation. We are calling on the Minister of the Interior, Hon. Abba Moro to resign his position, because he can’t be absolved from the activities that eventually led to this monumental tragedy.
“We are very worried about the worsening unemployment rate and are, hereby, calling on President Jonathan to tackle the problem sincerely and decisively by declaring an emergency on the unemployment and urgently come out with a marshal plan to tackle the problem.
“We would be deceiving ourselves not to admit that joblessness is an indirect effect of the spate of insecurity that is bedevilling the country all over. If the President continues to dither on addressing the problem, we are afraid the insecurity situation can only get worse.”
