EFCC quizzes Former Interior Minister Patrick Abba Moro

The ex-Minister of Interior, Abba Moro has been summoned and is being grilled by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC over the 2014 ill-fated recruitment into the Nigeria Immigration Service which claimed more than 16 lives across several recruitment centres in the country.

Moro was taken into EFCC custody on Monday in the Abuja office of the anti-graft agency. Recall that over 700,772 applicants paid the sum of 1000 each to write a test for an employment slot of just 4,000.

Although, in a public apology statement made by the ex-Minister to Nigerians on the 7th of April, 2014, Moro had said that he took responsibility over the bad organization of the recruitment exercise that led to the deaths of many youths seeking employment into the service.

“For me, it is a personal loss because the exercise, in the first place, took place within the Ministry of Interior, organised by the Ministry and its services and so whatever consequences, positive or negative, that have come and in this instance, negative, I, as the Minister of that Ministry, under whose purview this exercise took place, where people lost their lives, certainly take full responsibility,” apologized Moro.

Also, the ex-Comptroller-General of Immigration, David Parradang, who was a key-party to the botched recruitment exercise was removed by President Muhammadu Buhari in August and was interrogated by the EFCC in September. No charges have yet been brought forward on him though.

An official of the EFCC who confirmed the arrest of Mr. Moro said a team of investigators have already begun interrogating him.

Another EFCC official said: “It will be a deservice, to sweep under the carpet, the job scandal allegation against the former Minister, which led to the death of innocent job seekers. So, operatives have to invite him for interrogation.”