Sorrowful-looking parents and other family members of applicants who died at the National Stadium, Abuja, while seeking employment into the Nigeria Immigration Service have pleaded with the federal government to release the corpses of their loved ones for burial.
The bereaved families, who gathered in front of the emergency unit of the National Hospital about 7am yesterday wearing black attire, appealed passionately to the minister of interior, Comrade Abba Moro, who was at the hospital on a sympathy visit, to approve the release of their corpses for burial on religious grounds as they had no police report to tender.
Seven applicants, five females and two males including a pregnant woman died on Saturday in Abuja as a result of a stampede at the National Stadium venue.
A brother to one of the deceased and lecturer at Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa State, Engr (Dr) Mohammed Hakeem from Kogi State, regretted that his late sister and a mother of one, the late Mrs Oyiza Yusuf, was in 2013 defrauded of N150, 000 for the same job she lost her life on Saturday.
According to Hakeem, the news of the demise of his 34-year-old major family breadwinner got to him through his wife. He lamented that the deceased, who was prior to the tragic examination a business woman, is survived by an aged father and mother who, he feared, may not survive the hard blow.
“My regret is that I had no premonition that the late Oyiza re-applied for the same Immigration job for which she was once defrauded of over N150, 000. I make bold to tell you that the slots for which my sister has been used as a sacrificial lamb had been allocated to those that matter in Nigeria. I am calling on the federal government to be sensitive to the plight of ordinary Nigerians; at least for once it should get things done the right way,” Engr Hakeem said.
Another candidate who narrowly escaped being hurt, Mrs Abigail Aroniya, but whose younger brother fell victim, slammed the Immigration Service over what she termed as poor coordination as well as the lack of managerial skill to control a few persons.
