A mass purge is afoot in the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to weed out officers with dubious or outright false certificates and ensure the employment of qualified personnel.
An investigative panel set up by the NIS has discovered that 80 per cent of its inspectors and superintendents submitted forged certificates when they were employed.
The exercise is continuing in state and zonal commands to verify the certificates of chief superintendents. The panel moves to Abuja on April 7 to screen the certificates of assistant controllers and above.
The NIS deployed a special security machine to verify the certificates of employees sequel to a directive from the government, in the aftermath of the tragedy during the recruitment test on March 15.
Over 693,000 candidates showed up for the test nationwide for 4,500 jobs. No fewer than 16 died when stampede broke out in several centres.
Abuja wants to purge the NIS to create vacancies for younger personnel, TheNiche learnt on good authority.
Those affected by the certificate scandal are not taking it lying low, however. They are lobbying the people in authority to help them retain their jobs.
‘Operation show your certificate’ began on March 24, after a circular directed all officers to present for screening all certificates tendered from the point of entry, including First School Leaving Certificate.
A senior immigration officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity,said there is an unusual panic in the NIS, particularly among those who do not have the required qualification or have doctored what they submitted originally.
He disclosed that “hundreds” who fall in these two categories are lobbying at the highest level of the NIS to escape the axe.
Another senior officer confided that certificate racketeering is a major trend in the NIS. He alleged that some tendered academic qualifications they did not acquire and others cannot defend their certificates.
Said he: “Some of us, because of promotion madness, have submitted certificates, including fake ones, ranging from first degree to Masters and even doctorate degrees.
“There were instances when we pressed further and we discovered that in the certificates submitted by some officers, different vice chancellors or registrars signed for students who graduated in the same school in the same year.
“This we discovered in about five schools.
“Apart from that, we had cases where the colour/character of the certificates differ and you begin to wonder what is going on in the service.”
There is said to be in Garki, Abuja a clever certificate forging syndicate similar to the infamous one in the Oluwole area on Lagos island.
After the screening began in the NIS, an unprecedented number of officers with fake certificates, who have been promoted over the years, began running around the five departments to lobby.
NIS spokesman, Chukwuemeka Obua, an Assistant Comptroller of Immigration, declined to confirm or deny the purge plan when TheNiche contacted him.
Meanwhile, TheNiche has confirmed that contrary to denials, the NIS leadership contributed to the bungling of the nationwide recruitment exercise on March 15.
A reliable source in the NIS told TheNiche that indication emerged on March 14 that the leadership was not prepared for the exercise when officers who did not know about it were asked to take charge.
Our source, who said he was conscripted because his supervisor was not around, added that many of such ad-hoc supervising officers were asked to pay N500 to obtain an emergency ‘on duty’ identification card because it was out of stock.
But most refused to pay for the identity card or abandoned the exercise midway when they discovered that their own lives were at stake.
“Many officers were also manhandled, but those who could escape from the danger did before the situation became worse,” he said.
In another development, a scarcity of passport booklets has hit the NIS, which makes it difficult to renew old passports or obtain new ones.