By Allwell Nwankwo

Today, I write with pains in my heart. As result of the tragedy that the recent Nigeria Immigration
Service (NIS) recruitment exercise became, I have decided to suspend the write-up planned for this week.

First, I wish to express my heartfelt condolences to the families that lost their loved ones and sympathies to the injured. Sincerely, no job opportunity – no matter how juicy – is worth dying or being injured for.

The facts
The facts indicate that NIS needed to fill 4,556 vacancies. Significantly, over 700,000 Nigerians applied for those jobs and NIS charged each of them N1,000 (for God knows what). Because of the number of applicants and the need to conduct physical fitness tests, the NIS decided to use stadiums in major cities as recruitment centres. However, NIS obviously didn’t have a solid plan to receive the huge number of applicants as the agency was easily overwhelmed by the sheer number of candidates – a situation that resulted in unnecessary stampedes, deaths and injuries.

I got the first inkling that something was wrong when one of the applicants told me that NIS had instructed applicants to report to recruitment venues as early as 7.00 am for physical exercise although the main test would commence at 4.00 pm. Instinctively, I wondered whether NIS would provide some refreshment for the applicants who would have been exhausted before the main test. But then, I remembered that customers (citizens, if you like) who go to NIS offices to obtain international passports rarely receive decent or courteous treatment in the hands of the agency’s officials. I also recalled that passengers on international flights often arrive at our airports as early as 5.30 am only to be greeted with insults from morose immigration officials. I instantly realised that poor job-seekers would receive worse treatment from NIS, an agency that thrives on rudeness, insensitivity and carelessness.

The service angle
How will this recruitment fiasco affect the image of NIS as an employer? No doubt, the recruitment snafu speaks volumes about the organisation’s competence in handling routine administrative issues. It also bespeaks the value NIS places on its employees, who expectedly place similar value on those they serve. Because of their modus operandi, organisations like NIS end up attracting desperate individuals with low self-esteem – which, again, have grave implications for the quality of service they deliver.  After experiencing such a dehumanising recruitment exercise, successful applicants are not likely to become service champions soon.

Pray, why should any respectable organisation turn a recruitment exercise into a money-making venture? Why didn’t NIS cut down the number of applicants invited for the exercise to a manageable size through proper short-listing? Why didn’t NIS carry out the exercise in phases? Does it make sense to take hundreds of thousands through this kind of ordeal just to hire 4,556? Thank God, the President has cancelled the charade.

Lessons for all
It is regrettable that because of the level of unemployment in the country, many employers now treat job-seekers like scum. They show no compunction about keeping job-seekers waiting for several hours. Some conduct recruitment tests in halls that even reptiles won’t accept.  Such organisations need to understand that to attract great talent, they must become preferred employers. They must treat people decently.  They need to woo job-seekers and hire the best ones among them, because people are the organisation. If the NIS recruitment tragedy helps us learn these lessons, it would have served one useful purpose.