Reps summon immigration CG over recruitment exercise

The house of representatives committee on legislative compliance has summoned Mohammed Babandede, comptroller-general of Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), over the service preparedness to conduct its recruitment exercise.

The committee summoned Babandede after he failed to appear before the committee on Friday.

Olasupo Adeola, chairman of the committee, told journalists that it was “pathetic” that the committee was trying to do its constitutional duty by inviting the stakeholders involved in the recruitment but they failed to appear before the lawmakers.

He said the failure of the Babandede and stakeholders to appear “is against the spirit of the constitution and dangerous for our democracy.”

“It is very pathetic that this committee in trying to carry out its lawful duties as enshrined in the constitution of Nigeria,” Adeola said.

“We extended invitation to comptroller-general of Immigration and the chairman, Civil Defence, Fire service and Immigration and Prisons Service Board in exercise of our duties as contained in section 89 (1) (a) of 1999 constitution (as amended).

“So the house of representatives deemed it necessary to invite the concerned organisations. They are to come and brief the house on their preparedness and how they were going to carry out the exercise.

“Going by separation of powers it is the duty of the executive as represented by the board to do the recruitment, but it is our duty as lawmakers to ensure it is done in line with the law.

“We invited them and you can see the acknowledgement letter dated May 26, but there is no representation from any of them and there is no notice to the satisfaction of this committee.

“We do not want a situation where immigration will carry out a recruitment that will result to loss of lives as we experienced in 2014.

“The committee has instructed the clerk to summon duo in line with section 89 (1) (C) to appear before the committee on Wednesday next week. And failure to appear will evoke subsection d of this Section by issuing a bench warrant.”