18th March, 2014
No fewer than 20 Nigerians have signed a petition calling on President Goodluck Jonathan to sack his Interior Minister, Comrade Abba Moro, over the death of 16 Nigerians in stampedes at several job test centres across Nigeria weekend.
“Sixteen Nigerian youths out of 700,000 died in stampede at several cities in Nigeria on Saturday 15 March, trying to write a test to qualify for one of the 5,000 vacancies in the Nigerian Immigration Service, under the supervision of Abba Moro.
“Mr. Moro must be made to take responsibility for the shambolic test and what looks like a job scam advertised by a department under his watch”, said the online petition with the link: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/nigerias-interior-minister-abba-moro-must-be.
President Jonathan yesterday summoned Moro to his office yesterday to discuss the national tragedy, but calls are mounting that the president should sack the minister.
Vice President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Isa Aremu, leading protesters to the NIS office in Kaduna yesterday called for the resignation of Interior Minister Abba Moro, who on public television Monday confirmed that five women were among the seven dead and admitted the deaths were the result of “poor management of crowds”.
“The most honourable thing for him is to resign,” Aremu said, to cheers from the crowd.
Aremu appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to demonstrate that no life of an applicant will further be wasted at any recruitment centre.
He said, “the president should take action so as to prevent shameless exhibition of incompetence and non-service delivery by some of his ministers.”
“We need a commitment that NIS will stop this serial killing of Nigerians,” he said.