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Omg! See 2000 Suspended Immigration Personnel Protesting in Abuja (Photos)

Aggrieved 2000 persons recruited into the Nigeria Immigration Service and later suspended by President Muhammadu Buhari have staged a protest in Abuja.

About 2000 persons recruited into the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, who underwent three months induction training exercise but were suspended came out to protest begging the the Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, to reinstate them.


During a peaceful protest organized on Monday at the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja spokesperson of the group, Solomon Ojigbe said they had not received any official communication from the government since they were asked to go home last August.

According to him, all the applicants passed through the rigorous but transparent process of recruitment and were selected based on merit, but, lamented that they were suspended because they were regarded as ordinary Nigerians without any one to fight on their behalf.

Ojigbe said: “These young recruits, parents, families and sympathizers have waited aimlessly for over eight months …without any form of pronouncement from the Nigeria Immigration Service, Ministry of Interior, CDFIPB and other government sources.

“While we waited patiently for an official memo in view of our plight, the CDFIPB, Ministry of Interior and the Nigeria Immigration Services went ahead to recruit over 2000 personnel secretly who are presently in the various training institutions without considering us.

“This, we see as a move akin to replacing us. We are, therefore, at the Ministry to demand our immediate resumption”.

In his response, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Interior, Mr Bassey Akpanyung, who spoke through his Special Assistant Felix Okonkwo, promised to look into the case and address it accordingly.

“All issues relating to your grievances will be sorted out and everybody will be happy”, he promised them.


It would be recalled that following the ill-fated recruitment exercise conducted in 2014, in which over a dozen applicants lose their lives, then President Goodluck Jonathan constituted a committee to carry out a fresh recruitment process.

Out of the 48, 747 candidates shortlisted, 2,000 (400 Assistant Superintendent of Immigration ASI, 700 Assistant Inspector of Immigration and 900 Immigration Assistants) were selected after a computer-based test and 1600 of them got their appointment letters before training.

The 400 ASI were awaiting the arrival of theirs when the directive to terminate the process was issued.


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