Nigeria Immigration Tragedy: Human Rights Commission commences investigation

About 20 people died across Nigeria during the recruitment exercise.

The Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission, Bem Angwe, has urged Nigerian organizations to incorporate human rights in their assignments to avoid recurrence of Saturday’s Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, recruitment tragedy.

Mr. Angwe spoke on Tuesday in Abuja during a review of the stampede in various state venues where the NIS was conducting recruitment exercise. About 20 people died in various venues due to the stampede.

“Mainstreaming human rights in the work of every organization is what is needed to avoid such incident in future,” Mr. Angwe said.

The rights’ chief also ordered the Human Rights Monitoring Department of the Commission in its Abuja, Niger, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Benin offices to submit interim reports of Saturday’s tragedy, including identities of dead and injured persons. The deaths occurred in those cities.

Mr. Angwe also set up a committee to thoroughly carry out a full scale investigation into the allegations of human rights violations in the matter and make appropriate recommendations.

He noted that the NHRC would in line with its mandate and international best practices, ensure that victims of the incident are adequately compensated and measures put in place to forestall future occurrence.

On Saturday, stampedes at various centres of the NIS recruitment exercise across the country led to the death of at least 18 job seekers, including pregnant mothers.

In Abuja, seven job applicants lost their lives during a stampede at the overcrowded 60,000 capacity Abuja National Stadium.

The exercise which caused a major gridlock in Abuja saw some of the applicants walk over 2 km, from the National Stadium to Area 3 junction, to and from the venue.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported how only 4,556 vacancies were advertised by the NIS, but about 520,000 applicants registered to write the recruitment test. Each applicant was required to pay a N1, 000 processing fee to be eligible to participate.

The Immigration Service is believed to have made over half a billion naira from the exercise, although it claimed the money was for the consultancy firm it hired for the recruitment exercise.