By; NASIRU SULEIMAN, Abuja.
The federal government has asked the dispersed 2000 recruits of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to ensure they attend the screening exercise scheduled for next week Monday to address the issue or forget about their recruitment into the service.
Addressing a press conference Wednesday in Abuja, the NIS Comptroller General, Muhammed Babandede, said such screening was not new to the law enforcement agency like immigration service all over the world.
The service had earlier announced in a statement that the decision to re-screen the dispersed recruits was reached in the aftermath of an emergency meeting of the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration, and Prisons Services Board (CDFIPB) on the 11th of August, 2016.
The 2000 dispersed officers were expected to go through necessary security clearance, undergo a drug-test, certificate verification as well as the implementation of CDFIPB policy on “Age on Rank”.
But reacting to various protests against the decision of the government by some of the affected persons, the NIS boss told newsmen that the aggrieved recruits should realise that those who recruited them went beyond the instruction of the former President, adding that “those who committed the offence have been punished.”
He said: “The only condition we gave them is to pass through certain test and they don’t want to pass through that test. Do you blame government for that? I think we should commend the President for approving this kind of procedure.
“It is very commendable, we could have started fresh recruitment with other people but we said we want to take them alone, when we screen them and they pass the screen they will get their jobs”.
While given assurance that there is no ulterior motive behind the said screening, Babandede said: “The assurance I will give is that first we are going to follow the due process. What kind of sinister motive will be when, for example, if we find somebody who is over 40 years of age and want to start government work as regimented officer we say no, you can’t you are not qualify to be there.
“What sinister motive do we have if we find out that you have a fake certificate or if we find out that you have positive drug test, we can’t give riffle to someone who is a drug addict, they will kill people with straight bullets.”
