The continued silence over the fate of the suspended Comptroller General of Immigration Service, David Shikfu Parragang, who was accused of unilaterally recruiting 1,600 Nigerians into the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) without authorization appears to give fillip to the insinuation that the suspended CG of NIS is being made to pay for his audacity to challenge unprofessional handling of affairs in the service.
Parradang was suspended on August 27, 2015, via a letter referenced CDIFPB/IMM/338/Vol.1/54 and signed by AA Ibrahim, Secretary of the Civil Defence, Immigration, Fire and Prisons Services Board (CDIFPB).
But contrary to the claim that Parradang unilaterally recruited 1600 Nigerians into the NIS, investigation by Sunday Sun has revealed that the suspended CG might be a victim of vendetta contrary to what the public is being made to believe.
Sunday Sun gathered that the recruitment exercise for which Parradang was supposedly indicted, was ordered by the former President Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan through a Presidential Committee of which Mr. Parradang was a member.
A source in the Ministry of Interior listed other members of the committee to include a former head of the Civil Service Commission, who was the chairman, representatives from the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Prisons Service, DSS, Police, Civil Defence, and Ministry of Interior/Board among others.
“The basic reason for the Committee was to conduct a much more credible recruitment exercise of personnel into the NIS so as to correct the wrongs of the organizers of the botched March 15, 2014 recruitment exercise,” the source hinted
15 Nigerians seeking to be enlisted into NIS had died during the recruitment exercise organized by the then Minister of Interior, Abba Moro.
Over 700,000 Nigerian job seekers had paid the sum of N1000:00 each into what another source described as a questionable account before they could be eligible to take part in the botched recruitment exercise.
The decision to impose the payment on jobless Nigerians as one of the major requirements for participating in the exercise, Sunday Sun learnt, had pitted Parradang, who was said to have vehemently opposed the idea of compelling job seekers to part with their money as a condition for seeking employment against the then Minister of Interior, Abba Moro.
“Besides, Parradang’s opposition to Moro’s upgrade (towards the end of the last regime) of the contract to enable CONTEC Ltd determine and manage the collection of fines accruing to the NIS from immigration offences bordering on overstay, entry without visa, temporary work permit, and visa extension facilities, is believed to have further deepened their frosty relationship.
Sunday Sun reportedly gathered that in granting this approval, Mr. Moro ignored the recommendation of the suspended Comptroller General, that the sharing formula from the proceeds of these facilities be thus: 60% to FG, 20% to CONTEC Ltd and 20% to NIS, rather he favoured 30% to CONTEC and 10% to the NIS. Nobody must find it difficult to understand why Mr. Moro acted that way. The implication of this is that a foreign firm does not only determine applicable penalties for immigration overstay and visa offences but also earns more than the agency statutorily charged with such responsibility.
Parradang was said to have taken exception to the idea when he got to know about it.
CONTEC Ltd is an Indian firm, which in 1999 entered into a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) deal with the Ministry for the purpose of producing resident permits (Combined, Expatriate Resident and Aliens Cards, CERPAC) on behalf of the NIS for non-ECOWAS’ citizens resident in Nigeria. The contract, which became operational in 2002 is seen by many stakeholders as a huge fraud on Nigeria. Since Parradang was suspended last August, Nigerians have been kept in suspense as to what the findings of the various panels that investigated him are, while the 2000 successful job seekers who participated in the recruitment exercise had since been ordered to leave the training schools where they had reported for paramilitary training exercise. Meanwhile, findings by Sunday Sun have shown that the suspended NIS CG is empowered by civil service rules to endorse the appointment letters of the 1,600 junior officers, signed by him but which inexplicably formed the basis of his suspension.
While the provisions of Public Service Rules (PSR 030305, 030306 and 030307) specifically highlight disciplinary procedure for alleged misconduct and serious misconduct by civil servants, the prolonged suspension of Parradang, a source informed Sunday Sun, runs contrary to the letters of PSR 030406 on suspension.
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