Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, NSCIA, has linked the death toll recorded during last Saturday’s recruitment exercise of the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, to corruption, which it noted has eaten deep into the nation’s fabrics.
In a statement made available to the Nigerian Pilot yesterday in Abuja, NSCIA lamented that its call on government at all levels to eliminate corruption in the country has never been taking serious at the detriment of the future generations.
The statement, signed by the association’s chairman, Media Committee, Dr. Femi Abbas described “elimination of corruption in the land as a way of ventilating security and peace”.
About 18 job seekers were confirmed dead while many others were injured during the nationwide recruitment test conducted by NIS.
“The unwarranted precipitate tragedy has further confirmed that the root cause of the multi-dimensional problems of the country is corruption. It is unbelievably amazing that the same youths who had been compelled to serve their fatherland through the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC could be lured to premature death so cheaply in a country where employment ought to be a right rather than a privilege,” it stated.
NSCIA pointed out that “with or without any investigation, into the immediate and remote causes of that tragedy, it is apparent that corruption played a prominent role as usual.
“The real tragedy in this is not the incident alone but also in the inconsequential lip service that would be emotionally paid to it through the passing of bulk while the families of the victims keep mourning in endless agony. Such has happened again and again even as the nation groans painfully under the spell of the ruining phenomenon called corruption and there is no hope that it may end in a foreseeable future,” it further stressed.
The association recalled that the recruitment exercise had earlier been put on hold by the National Assembly on suspicion of irregularities; and why it was true that over six million job seekers applied for less than five thousand vacancies out of which about half a million were shortlisted and invited for screening.
It, however, commiserate with relatives of the victims while joining their relatives’ spiritually in mourning and in praying the Almighty Allah to grant them the fortitude to bear the agony.
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