The Federal Government has said that the ongoing recruitment into the Nigeria Immigration Service will accommodate just 1,112 applicants based on the approval given by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Our correspondent however learnt that over 40,000 Nigerians had applied for the advertised NIS jobs.
The Minister of Interior, Lt.Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau (retd.) who disclosed this on Monday in Abuja, explained that the recent advertisement by the NIS was to recruit the balance of 1,112 candidates to make it to 2000 as approved in the last aborted recruitment.
He said this while fielding questions from journalists shortly after the presentation of the handbook on the operations of the Presidential Executive Order at the NIS headquarters.
Dambazau said, “There were two aborted Immigration recruitments that were done. The first one led to fatality and casualties. The second one was dispersed following discovery of so many abnormalities which 2,000 of them were sent home.
“When we came in November 2015, we looked at the whole thing and we discovered for the second one that it was not all the fault of the candidates as such but it was the process that was followed.
“So, we wrote a memo to Mr President that we should recall those candidates, 2000 of them, so that we can reassess them and the President graciously approved that and we advertised in papers and I think about 1,500 or so reported and out of this number 888 qualified for that recruitments.
“Now the balance of 1, 112 is what we are working on now, that is the reason for the recent advertisement by the Nigerian Immigration Service to recruit that balance of 1,112 and this is the process we are in now.”
He, however, assured that the recruitment process would be transparent and fair.
The NIS Comptroller-General, Muhammed Babandede, said competency of the personnel would be given priority under his administration.
He said, “We are going to recruit young officers with priority of those who speak foreign languages such as French, Chinese, Arabic with priority to those who have ICT skills. We are complying with the national level to train quality and not just number.”
On the Presidential Executive Order, Babandede said his agency is using the opportunity of the mandate to further review its services.
He announced that request for official passports by state or local government officials would henceforth be confirmed by state Comptrollers of Immigration and divisional Immigration Officers respectively.
