Trouble As EFCC Reopens Probe Into Immigration Job Scandal

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has reopened investigations into the Nigerian Immigration Service recruitment tragedy in 2014, which led to the death of 19 young job seekers, The PUNCH learnt on Monday.

Operatives of the anti-graft agency on Monday quizzed the immediate past Comptroller General of the NIS, Mr. David Paradang, for over seven hours. Paradang was asked questions about the N555m said to have been collected from applicants who participated in the 2014 exercise.

The Senate under David Mark as president had in 2014 probed the tragedy but the report of the investigative committee did not see the light of the day before the seventh senate ended.

The PUNCH learnt that the EFCC invited Paradang to appear before it to provide explanation on how the money collected from job seekers in March 2014 was spent.

A top operative of the commission told one of our correspondents on the condition of anonymity that the NIS under Paradang and those who played crucial roles in the ill-fated recruitment only declared N45m as the money collected.

The source said that investigations conducted by operatives of the commission revealed that the applicants paid N600m.

It was added that top officials of the Ministry of Interior and the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prison Services Board, only declared N45m as the amount collected.

Paradang was said to have arrived at the Idiagbon House headquarters of the EFCC at Wuse II, Abuja, by 10 am and was taken straight to the interrogation room for a interrogation session that lasted seven hours.

As of 5pm when our correspondents filed this story, Paradang was still responding to questions from EFCC operatives probing the alleged fraud.

The source said, “Operatives of the commission are interrogating the former Comptroller General, Immigration, Mr. David Paradang.

“The man was invited and he came on his own and he was immediately ushered into the interrogation room. No, he was not arrested.

“Operatives are interrogating him in relation with the Immigration recruitment exercise that led to the death of many innocent Nigerians in 2014. “The commission is probing the disappearance of N600m that was received from the applicants.

“There is this report that those who carried out that exercise declared only N45m out of the N600m they collected. We want to know where the remaining N555m is”.