Figures available to calitown.com reveal that a little above 10, 000 men and women took part in the Nigeria Immigration Service recruitment exercise conducted at the Federal Government Girls College, Calabar, this past Saturday.
In an exercise that has been nationally criticized for the hardships candidates had to go through in the course of taking part in the exercise, theCalabar centre was no different as the exercise billed to commence at 08.00am, began at 1.45pm. Calitown.com sources further revealed men security personnel drafted to the venue, had a field day assaulting candidates under the guise of making them carry out instructions.
One candidate who spoke with calitown.com expressed sadness at this situation saying, “it is very unfortunate that after going to school and taking a degree, I come to this place and I am flogged by someone who has not seen the four walls of a university, clearly it shows from what I am going through here that there is a problem in Nigeria. My degree is also being flogged and you can imagine how all of this feels”. Unfortunately, calitown.com can also reveal that, for all who have taken part in this exercise, only 4, 000 slots are available in the NIS, nationwide and even before the exercise is rounded off, many of the candidates are guaranteed a no show.
However, while so many of the candidates bemoaned their fate, traders had a field day hawking wares and making a fortune from the exercise. One satchet water hawker who simply gave his name as Edet, happily told calitown.com to “tell government to do this recruitment every month so we can sell well”. He added that, “I have finished nine bags of pure water and the day is not half gone”. A satchet of pure water sold for between N50 and N100 at the venue of the exercise.
Meanwhile, a labour expert informed calitown.com that, “exercises like this one have gone to affirm the thinking that our youths should also explore job creation opportunities instead of job search options that are almost non-existent”. The expert, Anthony Edet, on the phone from Abuja, added that, “job creation is the only way we as a country can tackle the heavy unemployment figures we are currently grappling with and those who advertise all these jobs and bring people out to be exploited already know who they have chosen for the vacancies, what you see as this exercise is just a show to fulfill monies all righteousness “.
