ROSE UZOMA’S SACK: Recruitment turns awry as fate of 4,560 employees hang in balance
On January 17, 2013 · In News 1:00 am

By SONI DANIEL, REGIONAL EDITOR, NORTH

ABUJA—The sack, on Tuesday, of the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigrations Service, Rose Uzoma, by the Federal Government has dashed the hope of no fewer than 4,560 Nigerians who had been secretly offered employment by the service.

Vanguard gathered authoritatively that the Federal Government has ordered immediate cancellation of the employment letters already issued by Uzoma to the affected Nigerian applicants.

Findings revealed that most of those secretly offered employment were gearing up to assume duties when the recruitment controversy broke out, finally culminating in Uzoma’s forced retirement.

A source close to the Interior Ministry in Abuja said that the Federal Government was deeply embarrassed by the controversy surrounding the recruitment and would therefore not allow what it described as ‘backyard’ recruitment into the service.


Former Comptroller-General, Nigeria Immigration Service, Mrs. Rose Uzoma
The source said, “I can say that the government has cancelled the recruitment exercise and will take appropriate steps to recruit in a transparent way.

“There is no way we can allow the fake employment to stand,” the source explained.

When the employment row first broke out, Uzoma had tried to deny recruiting people into the service and particularly favouring certain states but she had to own up before the National Assembly that the jobs were not advertised so as to avoid recruiting bad eggs into the service.

The former Comptroller-General argued that the recruitment was meant to ‘correct’ the existing anomaly in the service workforce in which 12 states were at disadvantaged position as they lacked immigration officers.

Before the scandalous exercise, Imo State for instance, where Uzoma comes from, had highest number of immigration staff with (1,187) followed by Kogi (885) and Benue (851) while Ebonyi had the lowest with 233.

The North Central zone tops the list with (5,144), South-South (4,306), North-West (4,089), North-East (3,095), South-East (3,415) and South-West3, 267) out of the 21, 612 employees in the NIS.

Meanwhile, Mr. Rilwan Bala Musa, who was appointed in acting capacity to replace Uzoma, assumed duties yesterday with series of meeting with key officials in line with his new designation.

Musa was described as the most senior officer in the NIS, thereby eliminating the usual controversy that attends such appointments. Musa was promoted to the post of Deputy Comptroller General of the NIS two years ago.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/01/rose-uzomas-sack-recruitment-turns-awry-as-fate-of-4560-employees-hang-in-balance/

Enough of the bigotry. I hope they'll return the monies/bribes they collected from the former recruits.

Funny..... when the core north had been doing this sort of 'recruitment' since the early 70's to the coming of GEJ, the south east didn't say anything, sponsor unfounded articles in national dailies, or seek for anyones sack; we left everything in the hands of God, besides getting on with our lifes which is much more than 'national politics' and seeking government jobs. But the moment the shoe's on the other foot, they get restless and paranoid (of course they know what they've been getting up to tyese past 4 decades, and are afraid someone else may treat them same as they've been treating others), pointing an accusing finger and shouting 'marginalization' and remembering all of a sudden that there's a federal character policy in place.

Anyone remember a few months ago when they accused the Aviation minister of the same thing, even though she has so far favoured the north more in her airport renovation: Aminu Kano was completed first, and also given a Hajj terminal to boot....and the renovation i saw going on at Kaduna airport trumps what's being done at Enugu or Benin airports. This country is bending over backwards to make these people happy, yet they're still paranoid and would look for any excuse to get rid of an Igbo minister or head of agency like immigrations. Hasn't anyone noticed how customs and immigrations at our int'l airports seem to be dominated by northerners?

Very annoying.

This is why some of us are tired of whining from una. Based on the statistics released the SW has the lowest of the six regions of the country and those of us from the SW are neither crying nor threatening to release the "mad dog". The truth be told, if Justice is left in care of some people in Nigeria, Justice will be dead in no time because they have no conscience to nurture the truth.

Na this kind mentality of crying around everywhere like bush baby wey make people misbehave if ever given the opportunity to serve in positions of National importance.

This is a Democracy.

Guess the North got away with theirs cos of Military Rule.

Sack all the bigots and appoint True Nationalists.

Competence I believe should come before ethnicity.