NIS officers accuse CDFIP board of misconduct and high handedness

Apparently in defence of the suspended Nigeria Immigration Service boss, David Parradang, some senior officers have released a bare it all statement.

The official statement obtained from Linda Ikeji’s blog, accused the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prisons Services Board (CDFIPB) of high handedness and misconduct.

An excerpt of the statement reads: “It is no longer news that the Comptroller General of Immigration, David S. Parradang, OFR, mni has been suspended because of alleged violation of extant laws as enunciated by the CDFIP Board. What is news however, is that the Board is in a hurry to make Nigerians forget the genesis and the roles they played in the recruitment debacle of March 15, 2014. However, Nigerians are wise people; they know the story.They know that some persons who are still walking free on the streets of this country collected N1000 from each of the over 700,000 Nigerian job seekers in the botched exercise of 15 March, 2014 during which 15 young Nigerians paid the supreme price with their blood and tens of others got various degrees of injuries. Public outcry rented the whole atmosphere.”

Adding that “The senate of the 7th Assembly waded into the matter but because those who swindled the young Nigerians and even killed some in the most shameful recruitment exercise were so powerful, the senate report never saw the light of the day even up till date. Even the presidential directives on them to refund the blood money of #1000:00 collected from young job seekers remained ignored.”

“The current fight that led to the suspension of the CGI began when the Board called on him to cancel the entire recruitment exercise done by the presidential committee. He told them clearly that he has no such unilateral power to annul the outcome of an exercise of that magnitude because other members of the committee need to be consulted. The real truth about the Board’s position is not unconnected with the fact that the exercise did not allow members of the Board to impose their candidates on the CGI to recruit thereby short changing qualified Nigerians,” the statement said.

Revealing further, the senior officers said that “The Board/Ministry felt that the CGI, DS Parradang, OFR,mni did not carry them along in the exercise. This is not only strange but very illogical because there was no how the CGI would have nominated the representative of the Board to the Presidential Committee of which he was also a nominated member.”

Adding that "The SINS of CGI Parradang in the court of the Board/Ministry are not unconnected with his consistent calls for the adherence to proper procedures and practices in the relationship between the Board/Ministry and the NIS. On 27th May, 2015, and towards the end of the last administration, the Board forwarded three different lists of 30 Specially Promoted Officers of the NIS. The CGI raised opposition to the lists pointing out that his inputs on any of the so called specially promoted officers were not sought by the Board as required by the Board’s Guidelines on Special Promotion. In the accompanying letter, signed by AA Ibrahim, the CGI was directed to issue promotion letters to the eight affected junior personnel implying the Board’s belated recognition that the CGI was supposed to be carried along in the first place. The letter reads in parts thus; ‘in the exercise of your delegated responsibility, your are expected to conduct the production and issuance of the individual officers’ letters of promotion’.”