CONTROLLER-GENERAL, NIGERIAN IMMIGRATION SERVICE, MRS. ROSE UZOMA
As debates continue to dominate public discourse over the pre-retirement order given to former Comptroller-General of Immigration, Mrs. Rose Uzoma, informationng.com has gathered that the directive emanated straight from President Goodluck Jonathan’s desk.It was learnt that the Presidency decided to show Uzoma the exit door for getting roping it in the recruitment scandal that rocked the NIS a few weeks ago.
The Federal Government had on Tuesday directed the CGI to proceed on her pre-retirement accumulated leave and asked her to hand over the duties and responsibilities of her office on or January 16, 2013 to the most senior Deputy Comptroller-General of Immigration, Rilwan Musa, who will act as Comptroller-General of Immigration pending the appointment of a substantive CGI.
A statement by the Secretary, Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prisons Service Board, Dr. R. Attahiru, in Abuja, stated that President Jonathan had approved Uzoma’s terminal leave.
The initial thinking was to allow the Immigration boss see out her tenure gracefully at the end of March 3013 when she would have attained the mandatory retirement age of 60 years, but the President was said to have been irked over media reports that implicated the Presidency in the job racketeering in the immigration service.
The recruitment scandal blew open when a House of Representatives committee probed the CGI for carrying out a recruitment exercise without advertising it in the media as was the practice.
Informationng.com reports that mrs. Uzoma was reported to have obtained approval from the Head of Service of the Federation to employ 4,560 people to the NIS out of which she allegedly offered hundreds of job slots to top government functionaries, including the Presidency which was offered 250 slots; Jonathan’s mother 40 slots; First Lady 100 slots; Interior Minister Abba Moro 100 slots; two commissioners of the Immigration board 30 slots each, and the Federal Character Commission 250 slots.