What a Shame - Nigeria's Interior Minister Blames Job Seekers For Stampede Deaths

Nigeria’s interior minister, Abba Moro, has denied responsibility for the deaths of test candidates at the Immigration service test centers and said the job seekers were to blame for the stampede that killed over 13 applicants. What a shame. This man needs to apologize to the families who lost their children, sack those in charge of this recruitment process and also resign.

Mr Boro was speaking in Jos, Plateau State, where he inspected the exercise. According to Premium Times,

Mr. Moro said the applicants should blame their “impatience” for the stampede and the deaths.
He said applicants refused to follow instructions handed them by the recruiters.

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

Some backstory: The Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, conducted a recruitment examination for 3,000 vacancies this past weekend, and received millions of applications with each applicant paying 1,000 naira. Of those that applied, hundreds of thousands of them were shortlisted and turned out at various examination venues around the country for a physical test.

The lack of crowd control at the stadium venues of these tests and attendant stampedes have led to the death of seven applicants in Abuja, four in Port Harcourt, and two in Minna, while several others are said to have sustained injuries.

Some high profile Nigerians have spoken out against the news.

Abike Dabiri sent out some tweets condemning the fee of N1000 that was charged the applicants.

Femi Fani-Kayode reacted to the unfortunate incident with a post on Facebook

60 per cent of our graduates are unemployed. 51 per cent of our people are unemployed. As a glaring testimony to these frightful statistics, which I happen to believe may well be a world record in terms of unemployment, a terrible tragedy has occurred in Abuja and Port Harcourt. Over 50,000 of our youths gathered at the National Stadium in Abuja alone for an aptitude test for a few jobs in the Immigration Service. 11 of those children were killed in a stampede whilst looking for those jobs.

Their only crime was to try to get a better life for themselves and to try to secure their future. What a tragedy. One day Nigerians will appreciate the importance of facts, figures and statistics. Why is anyone surprised that hundreds of thousands of youths are gathering in stadiums all over the country today just to apply for a tiny handful of jobs that are available in Immigration? This is so SIMPLY because there are NO jobs available for these children in our country.

I repeat 80 per cent of our graduates are unemployed and 51 per cent of our people are unemployed. Why won’t they die and be killed looking for jobs? Why won’t they gather in stadiums all over the country in their hundreds of thousands just to do an aptitude test for a job in Immigration? Why should anyone be surprised by this?

They are desperate and they are suffering. That is what Goodluck’s government has done to them. We have an army of angry, jobless and desperate youths on our hands in this country and we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder. May God help us and may He forgive us for failing these children and destroying their futures. Other than this I will say no more on this matter because the truth is that most Nigerians no longer ”give a damn” when blood is shed and when lives are taken.

Under President Goodluck Jonathan we have become a nation of vampires where the death of innocent children and youths means nothing and where we cannot even provide jobs or a decent standard of living for our young ones. May the souls of those youths that lost their lives in today’s tragic events rest in perfect peace. - by Femi Fani-Kayode