#NISstampede: Applicants sue Moro, Parradang as Niger releases names of victims

The Interior Minister, Abba Moro and the Nigerian Immigration Service Comptroller-General, David Parradang have been dragged before a Federal High Court in Abuja over the manner in which the NIS recruitment exercise was conducted.

The recruitment which took place last Satureday in Abuja and several other examination centres in the country saw the death of several applicants with many more injured after a stampede allegedly resulting from limited crowd control provision by the NIS.

Four persons representing themselves and the Immigration applicants are seeking an order declaring the exercise illegal, unwarranted, and in violation of the applicants’ fundamental rights to life.

The plaintiffs, who filed the suit at the registry of the court, brought the application under sections 33,34, and 44 of the 1999 Constitition (as amended) and the equivalent articles of the African Charter on Human and People’s Right Act.

The four applicants - Charles Ugwuonye, Friday Danlami, Chinedu Onwuka and Samson Ojo – asked the court to declare the recruitment exercise illegal and compel the NIS not to utilize the money realised from it. They are also asking the court to order the respondents to refund the recruitment money back to the applicants, pay the sum of N1m to each applicant and N50m to the families of deceased applicants as general damages.

Applicants were required to pay a sum of N1,000 by the NIS to register for the exercise.

The plantiffs also named the attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice, minister of interior and the Nigeria Immigration Service as co-defendants to the suit.

Meanwhile, the Niger state government have released the named of injured victims of the Immigration stampede in Minna.

The government and the State Immigration Service released names of fourteen people who received varying forms of injury during the exercise.

Read the Leadership report below:

Barely a week after the Immigration recruitment tragedy in Niger State, the Niger State government and the State Immigration Command have formally released 14 names of the victims who received major and minor injuries during the stampede last Saturday in Minna.

This is also coming on the heel of the presidential directive that ministers from the affected states should go back to their various areas to visit the families of the victims of the stampede and deliver a special message from President Goodluck Jonathan .

The secretary to Niger State government, Rt. Hon. Idris Ndako Kapki, who released the names yesterday while receiving the minister of state, agriculture, Hajiya Asabe Assmau Ahmed, said the identity of one of the dead female victims was yet to be known but two of the applicants, male and female, who were certified dead by the hospital management were known.

He gave the names of the victims as Nafiu Alhassan, Ozoamiakor Adaeze, Ndeji Usman, Umar Alh. Audu, Iliya Zawali, Angela Samuel, Fatimal Adamu Sambo, Hauwa Musa Modibo, Rita E. Abraham, Mohammed Sani, Yusuf Baba, Blessing Bako, Annah B. Damidami and Ibrahim Isah Mohammed (deceased).