Thirteen survivors of the Nigerian Immigration Service’ recruitment stampede have been discharged from the hospital.
The Minister of State for Agriculture, Hajiya Asabe Ahmed, was informed about their discharge from the hospital when she visited the General Hospital, Minna, where the victims were admitted after last Saturday’s tragic incident. She later visited the family of late Nafiu Mohammed, one of the victims, and Blessing Bako, one of the 14 injured applicants. She donated undisclosed amount of money to Bako.
Asabe explained that she was in Minna to commiserate with the State Government and people over the death of job seekers in the area.
“Very soon, government will come up with more measures to tackle unemployment in the country,” she said.
Asabe, who did not give details of such measures, however, described unemployment as a global phenomenon.
The minister said government had set up a committee to unravel the cause of the unfortunate incident across the country and recommend ways of avoiding further occurrence.
Responding, the uncle to late Mohammed, Mr Inuwa Abdalla, described the deceased as an ambitious and hardworking person.
Abdalla said the family had accepted the death in good faith, adding that the tragedy was the will of God. He promised that the family would cooperate with the government on the employment offered to three members of the family. Mr. Ezekiel Kaura, Comptroller of Immigration in Niger, said the stampede was the result of unprecedented number of applicants trying to get to the venue of the examination at the same time. He was represented at the occasion by his deputy, Mr Dauda Kolo.
“We expected 7,000 applicants but 12,000 turned up and we tried to manage them,” he said.
Earlier, Governor Babangida Aliyu, represented by Secretary to Government, Mr Ndako Kpaki, said one of the corpses, a female, was yet to be identified for collection. He commended the Federal Government for getting across to the bereaved families and offering employment to three members of each family affected in the unfortunate incident. At least 19 applicants died during stampedes at various venues of the Immigration recruitment exercise last Saturday.
