PHOTONEWS: Immigration Job Seekers Take Over Lagos Traffic In Protest

Thousands of job seekers invited to take an aptitude test by the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) have taken control of all access roads to the National Stadium Lagos, venue of the test in protest.

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The applicants, who alleged that they were shortchanged by the Immigration Service, according to Sahara Reporters, are currently chanting anti-government songs insisting they won’t be going back home anytime soon.

Several of them said, “after all, we have no jobs and, therefore, there is nothing to return home to do”.

They are also calling for the refund of N1, 000 they paid as application fee for them to enroll for the NIS job screening test that did not hold in Lagos as planned.

It was reported that no fewer than 100, 000 of the applicants thronged the 45, 000-capacity National Stadium Saturday morning with the hope of getting a position out of the 3,000 job openings declared by the NIS but the screening exercise was cancelled.

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1 COMMENT

  1. THE REALITY OF UNEMPLOYMENT- JONATHAN’S REFORMATION STYLE AND EXPLOITATION OF OUR YOUTH.
    No job, yet you have to pay through your throat to be molested and duped by government agents. The more you look the less you see.
    NIS knows it needs just 3000 recruits, yet it sold out millions of application forms to unemployed youths, thereby extorting money from them.
    The venues for the recruitment exercise show that the orgabizers are aware of the population involved. Since the trend in our politics has made it to us that our leaders care less about human dignity, value and respect for human rights and welfare, it is no surprise what NIS subjected the applicants to. How can a management in its right sense call over a million candidates for written examination for just 3000 vacancies? No screening to prune the number to manageable size, criteria for application was made too opened-later to be changed the very day of recruitment, the venues were too small to accommodate the invited population-an unmanageable size.
    This is a clear case of exploitation and human abuse. Must government representative add more to the hardships of the less privileges? Is it the percentage that the controller and his principal officers will share from the sales of form that made them blind to foresee that hazards? Is it a mere demonstration of fake recruiting process? It is no secret, we know the final list will not reflect merit because the appointment must have been concluded prior to the recruitment exercise. There must have been chains of lists of employ the following or the bearers from political big wigs, top ranking government officials, etc. Some of which must be complied with.
    The candidates already suffering from financial inadequacy were made to spend on fitness training kits in preparation for the recruitment. The physical exercise meant to be part of the recruitment did not hold. Had it been that such exercise was embarked upon more casualties would have been recorded. How on earth would people out of their selfish end damn the consequences of their greed and incompetence on people’s lives.
    Patriotism is nil in the way we carry out national assignments. It is high time we made the human values first priority in our administrative process.
    The idea of outrageous sales of forms for employment, admission, contract, etc should stop. Exploitation of the less privileges cannot help our already bad situation in Nigeria, rather it will complicate it.
    Whatever corrective measures FGN will take on this unwarranted exploitation, let it include the POST – UME / JAMB and GRADUATE admission forms. The VCs, RECTORs PROVOSTs of these tertiary institutions are after their own percentage of the stake. The cost of the application forms and the ratio of applicants to the available vaccancies should be fixed reasonably.
    All possible laws, rules and regulations should be enacted and enforced in order to stop this type of unholy activities. Poverty and less privilege should not be made a curse or a cause of rejection in the society.
    If we fail to act now, we bound to experience worse situation. This is enough excuse for this administration to take necessary steps to convince the public that it is not promoting corruption.