How President Goodluck Jonathan Covered Up The Immigration Employment Scam

By Okoi Obono-Obla

One of the hall marks of Jonathan’s Presidency is the out frequent breaks of scandals involving officials of the administration concerning mindless corruption and graft. Since the inception of the Jonathan’s regime on 6th May 2010 we have had more than ten political scandals that borders on corruption.

These are the pension fund gate, malabu gate; $20 billion gate; Siemens gate; N10 billion Minister of Petroleum Resources gates, South Africa gate and immigration gate to mention just but a few.

In this short essay, I will restrict myself to the immigration gate that shocked the nation early this year because it poignantly captured how endemic and pandemic corruption and impunity have became in the country under the watch of President Jonathan..

The Nigeria Immigration gate was a recruitment scam perpetrated in the Office of the Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro whose minister supervises the Nigeria Immigration Service.

The Nigeria Immigration gate led to the untimely death of more than 19 young Nigerians that thronged the various immigration recruitment centres across the country in April, 2014 in order to be recruited into the Nigeria Immigration Service.

It was established after the incident that available vacancies in the Nigeria Immigration Service were for only about 3000 placements.

Apart from those that died, hundreds of these applicants sustained various degrees of injury after stampedes broke out in the various recruitment centres across the country because of poor crowd control measures.

It was undeniable that the huge turnout of applicants was beyond the control of the immigration officials.

The huge turnout of more than 500,000 young Nigerians in the various recruitment centres hunger for employment starkly and glaringly brought to the fore the chronic unemployment problem in the country despite phantom economic growth rate bandied by the government.

It was later found that the recruitment was done without the approval of the Board of Customs, Immigration and Prisons, that is statutory responsible for the recruitments, promotion and discipline in the Nigeria Customs, Nigeria Immigration and the Nigeria Prisons Services.

However, the Minister of Interior illegally, exploitatively and mindlessly collected N1000 each from more than 500,000 desperate and poor young Nigerians.

Some of these young people have been on the unemployment queue for so many after leaving schools. What a pity!

It is conservatively estimated that the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro would have fleeced more than N500 Million from these hundreds of thousands of hapless and desperate young Nigerians who responded to an advertisement to apply for jobs placement in the Nigeria Immigration Service.

The Minister of Interior, Abba Moro is from Benue State. He is a well known crony of the President of the Nigerian Senate, David Mark.

A reliable source says that the contract for the recruitment in the Nigeria Immigration Service was indeed awarded by the Minister without a shred of competitive bidding contrary to the Procurement Act.

It is widely believed that Abba Moro was recommenced to President Jonathan for appointment as Minister by David Mark. David Mark and President Jonathan enjoy a chummy relationship.

So after this scandal broke out many Nigerians predicted that nothing would happen to Abba Moro because he is a crony of David Mark and that President Jonathan would do nothing.

Events that have transpired since that incident and the fact that President Jonathan has bluntly refused to do anything to Abba Moro definitely proved these pundits right.

Recall that the Senate constituted a Committee to investigate the incident. The Report of the Committee has not seen the light of the day.

How can the Senate Committee do anything when it a crony/protege of the President of the Senate, David Mark is involved in this sordid scam?

It is disheartening that this matter has been swept under the carpet. In a well run country Minister Abba Moro and all those fingered to have been responsible for this calamity would have been sacked and made to face criminal prosecution for negligence and fraud. But not in Nigeria under President Jonathan!

Meanwhile, President Jonathan in his reaction to the incident promised to give automatic employment to relatives of those that died in the incident has not been fulfilled more than six months after the incident.

At about the same time this incident happened in Nigeria, a similar one occurred in the Republic of South Koreawhen a ferry (MV Sewol) carrying hundreds of pass angers travelling from the port of Incheon in the North West to the Southern resort Island of Jeju capsized and sank and resulted in the death of hundreds of people.

The incident was attributed to official negligence and the resultant national furore led to the resignation of the South Korea Prime Minister, Mr. Chung Hong-Won and the prosecution of the Captain and his crew of the vessel for negligence, homicide and abandoning ship.

But in Nigeria, Minister Abba Moro is still in office and there is an official cover up of this horrible incident.

Surely, South Korea is one country that its government have regard for its people; but not in Nigeria, where the government treat it people with absolute contempt and distain.

In South Korea, government is responsive and responsible and there is strong enforcement of law and order.

In Nigeria, there is no respect for the rule of law, and law and order is hardly enforced when those in authority breached the law.

This particular incident and the nonchalant manner President Jonathan has handled it should be a pointer to Nigerian youths how low they are rated in the scheme of affairs under this administration.

In the light of the above, will any reasonable young and unemployed person afford to cast his vote in the forthcoming election for President Jonathan and the PDP?