The Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission has reopened investigations into the Nigerian
Immigration Service recruitment tragedy in 2014, which led to the death of 19
young job seekers, The PUNCH learnt on Monday.
Operatives of the
anti-graft agency on Monday quizzed the immediate past Comptroller General of
the NIS, Mr. David Paradang, for over seven hours. Paradang was asked questions
about the N555m said to have been collected from applicants who participated in
the 2014 exercise.
The Senate under
David Mark as president had in 2014 probed the tragedy but the report of the
investigative committee did not see the light of the day before the seventh
senate ended.
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The PUNCH learnt
that the EFCC invited Paradang to appear before it to provide explanation on
how the money collected from job seekers in March 2014 was spent.
A top operative
of the commission told one of our correspondents on the condition of anonymity
that the NIS under Paradang and those who played crucial roles in the ill-fated
recruitment only declared N45m as the money collected.
The source said
that investigations conducted by operatives of the commission revealed that the
applicants paid N600m.
It was added that
top officials of the Ministry of Interior and the Civil Defence, Fire,
Immigration and Prison Services Board, only declared N45m as the amount
collected.
Paradang was said
to have arrived at the Idiagbon House headquarters of the EFCC at Wuse II,
Abuja, by 10 am and was taken straight to the interrogation room for a
interrogation session that lasted seven hours.
As of 5pm when
our correspondents filed this story, Paradang was still responding to questions
from EFCC operatives probing the alleged fraud.
The source said,
“Operatives of the commission are interrogating the former Comptroller General,
Immigration, Mr. David Paradang.
“The man was
invited and he came on his own and he was immediately ushered into the
interrogation room. No, he was not arrested.
“Operatives are
interrogating him in relation with the Immigration recruitment exercise that
led to the death of many innocent Nigerians in 2014.
“The commission
is probing the disappearance of N600m that was received from the applicants.
“There is this
report that those who carried out that exercise declared only N45m out of the
N600m they collected. We want to know where the remaining N555m is”
The PUNCH also
learnt that the EFCC might invite the immediate past Minister of Interior, Mr.
Abba Moro, and other top officials of the interior ministry in relation with
the issue.
The Head of Media
and Publicity of the EFCC, Mr.Wilson Uwujaren, confirmed to our correspondent
on the telephone that Paradang was at the EFCC.
“He was invited
and he came,” he said and refused further comments.
Before the May
15, 2014 tragedy, a recruitment committee headed by S.D Tapgun, the
Director/Secretary of the board, had recommended that the recruitment exercise
be shifted to either the last weekend in March or second week in April, 2014
for proper arrangement to be made.
The recruitment
committee also proposed that N5m should be budgeted for hiring of ambulances
and buying of water.
At its last
meeting held on March 7, 2014, the committee raised a memo to Moro on its
recommendations, but the memo was ignored.
The 16 members of
the committee were drawn from the CDFIPB, NIS, Ministry of Interior, and Drexel
Tech Nigeria Limited, which managed the online portal for the recruitment
exercise.
The members
include Tapgun (CDFIPB); JaeI Kpatuvvak, Deputy Director (A&P), CDFIPB;
Okhamera A. I., Asst. Director (Admin), CDFIPB; Bello Torankawa, Asst. Director
(A&P), CDFIPB; Hamid AbduII-Iamid, Asst. Director (IMM), CDFIPB; Aduku, M.
M., Asst. Director (D&GP), CDFIPB; and Oyedeji, T.V., CIS (APU) , NIS.
Others are
Abubakar A. A., Interior ministry; Chukwu O. C., Rep. Asst. Director (F&A),
CDFIPB; I. M. Makama, LA, CDFIPB; Nasiru Yusuf, ICT Unit, CDFIPB; . Shehu
Mohammed, Deputy Director (D &GP), CDFIPB; Mukah O. S., Chief Admin.
Officer (FFS); Theodore Maiyaki, Drexei Tech.; Wiiiiam Butau, Drexel Tech; and
Abioye Bankole, Drexei Tech.
The committee
budgeted Nll2,38l, 200 for the exercise to cover Duty Tour Allowance for
immigration officials, cost of radio and television announcements, cost of
setting examination questions, cost of digital printing machine, marking
scanners and contingency (five per cent of the total costs).
Though each
applicant paid N1000 for the online registration, no money was released to the
recruitment committee by the Interior ministry.
The committee met
with officials of Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited and asked the firm to provide
funds for the recruitment because there was no provision for the exercise in
the 2014 budget.
The firm released
N45m on March 12 to enable the aptitude test to hold as scheduled.
Following the
recruitment tragedy, former President Goodluck Jonathan directed the ministry
to refund the N1,000 to the applicants, but the directive was not carried out
by the ministry.
The career of
Parradang ended on August 21, 2015 when he was suspended by the Federal
Government for illegally recruiting 1,600 personnel into the service in May,
2015 without the approval of the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prisons
Services Board, which has the statutory power to recruit.
He was said to
have recruited 700 Assistant Inspectors of Immigration and 900 Immigration
Assistants III, towards the end of Jonathan’s tenure.
He was
subsequently replaced by Martin Abeshi by President Muhammadu Buhari a week
later.
Though the
Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, visited the Presidential Villa to plead
with Buhari, the sacking of the suspended CG indicated that the visit was not
successful.