Testimonies

What happened in your examination center? SHARE YOUR STORIES....

 Patience Nonye, Lagos Stadium

It was a dog eat dog experience 
 



I applied for Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) on 18th of October 2013, I bought the form from UBA bank after I got the information from my elder brother and encouragement from him to try my luck because I have been unemployed for 5years.

I purchased the form and applied on the stated date waited for about 5months before I got a text message on my phone on the 13th of March 2014 as follows:

 “Exam into Nigeria Immigration service holds Saturday March 15th 2014 at 7am in your preferred exam state. Contact your state commend for more info”.

Excited and with full of hope I woke up by 5:00am on Saturday 15th of March for the exam.  I got to the national stadium by 6:20am and was shocked by the number of people I met at that hour who has also come to write the same examination.

I quickly joined the crowd and I was told to go and buy my white and white sport wear, which NIS officials were selling for N5,500 (short – N1,000, Top – N2,000 and canvass – N2,500). I declined to buy and rather entered a bike from the stadium to my pastor’s house which cost about N500 thru and fro and collected the white polo, white short with white canvass.

Starting 7am up to about 2:45pm, I waited together with thousands of other job seekers, including pregnant women, outside the main bowl of the national stadium under heat of the scorching sun without no direction, information or assistance by anybody from the NIS or the stadium management. It was about 3 0’clock that one of the entrance to the national stadium was opened which triggered a violent rush and stampede as everyone wanted to enter the mainbowl at once after waiting for such a long time under the sun.

I heard one of the immigration officers telling the young men that only 500 slots were allocated to Lagos State and 200 slots have been given to senators and “oga’s at the top”. That was when the real rush began as people started clamping the gates of the only open entrance gate and other entrance points into the mainbowl to take a chance at the remaining 300 slots.

I was shocked to see the officials of the NIS Immigration already waiting for us inside the mainbowl of the stadium with the question papers. I think they were overwhelmed by the number of people that came and they didn’t have a proper arrangement with the stadium managers. At about 3:45pm they started distributing the question papers in an odd way: they were throwing the question up, flinging it upward for the fastest or strongest to
Catch.
I saw people fall to the floor. I saw women hacked and shuffled roughly and rudely by the men. It was dog eat dog experience. I have never experienced such thing in my life; it was an eye sour the immigration officials were very rude and insulting threatening everyone as if they own the ministry. I finished answering the 30-nos objective questions at about 5pm only for us to hear at the point of submission that Lagos center have been cancelled.

In our very eyes, we saw our question papers torn by the immigration officials on duty while our acknowledgement slips were destroyed by this inhuman fellows, after waiting for about 11hrs under the sun, and after all the insults and very inhuman treatement meted on us. It was so painful that at the end of the day, all our efforts were ridiculed by fellow Nigerians who at one time yesterday were unemployed. This act created another reaction of “aluta” and protests by angery applicants. We hid ourselves inside the stadium till about 7pm before I could safely leave the place.
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 Kasim Tunde Suleiman  - Jos, Plateau State


Examination started at 5 p.m. in the evening 



I am an unemployed Nigerian youth that graduated in the year 2010, from the University of Jos and completed my National Youth Service Corps in Lapai, Niger State, and since then, I have been making several efforts to get a job without much success.

I became aware of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) vacancy notice in October last year, and applied on October 4, 2013.  I filled the form online, printed a slip which I took to the slip to Diamond Bank, Ahmadu Bello to pay N1,000 and I was given a printed slip there also. 

Several months later, I got a text on the 13th of March 2014 notifying me of a recruitment examination without a center sent to me. I only learned of the center from friends after much inquiries. On the examination day, I left home some minutes pass 7 o’clock in the morning, but to my surprise, couldn't due to traffic holdup caused by the crowd who were heading to the center of the exam (Command Secondary School, Zaria). The holdup stretched up to Tomatoes Market Farin Gada (A distance of 20 minute walk from the center).
People were being pushed and there was traffic standstill. The closest I could get to was near the school gate. Everywhere was choked up. A lady got trampled upon and I later heard she died. We were there for several hours not knowing what to do until 10 a.m unti it was suggested that the adjacent school, Federal Government College, Jos be also used as an alternate center to ease the crowd. 

The recruitment exercise started with the stamping and screening the credentials of applicants, where they indicated the post they applied for and presented their academic and birth certificates. That lasted for about four hours. After that, we were told to go sit on open field, under the scorching sun in expectation of the exam question papers .That lasted for like an hour or so too. Abba Moro, the minister for interior was there, but never addressed us as we anticipated. He only spoke to some NIS officers around and left. The question papers finally came about some minutes to five o’clock in the evening. And it was for just THIRTY minutes. WE left the exam ground some minutes to six o’clock in the evening.
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Ilesanmi Olumide Heritage - Liberty Stadium Ibadan

There was discrimination between holders of BSC and other certificates…

Here in Ibadan, we did not have much casualty like other states. In the morning, when we got to the venue, thousands of applicants were standing at the Liberty Stadium waiting for immigration officials to arrive. When they arrived, they instructed everybody to come closer to be updated on some vital information. After that, they started the accreditation of the BSC applicants. The accreditation was so very slow that the applicants got furious and they forced their way into the stadium. 

The Bsc holders first arranged themselves under the stadium-covered tent, but the tent was unable to occupy them all. Some of them had to stay under the sun. 

Holders of HND, NDE, NCE, Diploma and O-level certificates were all kept in the sun for more than 6 hours. The unfortunate thing is that after the BSC holders finished their own exam, followed by NCE and diploma and O-levels, some of the NCE and diploma certificate holders were unable to get question papers because of the unavailability and insufficiency of the question papers. This caused many applicants to stay even longer. 

It was not until 5.00p.m. that they brought the photocopied question papers which was done in the stadium premises. I saw about three ladies that fainted and they were immediately taken somewhere to be resuscitated.
 

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