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The All Progressives Congress has said it is greatly distressed at the deaths of 19 job seekers at the venues of the Nigerian Immigration Service job test on Saturday, calling it a direct consequence of 15 years of misrule by the PDP-led federal government.

In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the Minister of Interior must bear direct responsibility for the needless deaths by immediately stepping down from his post, if he has any honour left, or be fired.

APC commiserated with the families of the victims and wished those who were injured a speedy recovery.

Massive mindless looting of the public treasury has seen funds that could have been used to create millions of jobs end up in the deep pockets of corrupt government and PDP officials, without any consequence for the thieves, while the incompetent federal government led by a clueless President continues to deceive the public with cooked figures showing job creation where indeed there have been job losses,.

Today, sadly, the truth has been laid bare: 5,000 or so vacancies declared by NIS have attracted over six million applicants, from which over half a million was shortlisted, according to published reports, and the desperation of our youth to eke out a decent living has been exploited by a villainous government that forced each applicant to cough out N1,000 thus raking in N6bn from jobless people, the party said.

Is it true that the Minister directly presided over the recruitment and money-making venture? Could this have been part of the governments fund-raising measures for the 2015 elections? Why was a huge number of applicants invited for only 5,000 jobs or less? Why was such a shoddy arrangement made for the test when so many people were invited? Could the test not have been done in batches to avoid a stampede? How much indeed was realised from this glaring extortion of job seekers? What happened to the money?

An investigation into the needless deaths of our youth, under a government that has failed them in every respect, must seek to answer those questions and recommend ways to avoid a recurrence. At least if a government cannot create jobs, it must neither profit from its incompetence nor send the victims of its ineptitude to their early graves.

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NIS job deaths, consequence of PDPs misrule APC

The All Progressives Congress on Sunday called for investigation into the needless deaths of some job seekers at some venues of job test of Nigerian Immigration Service.

Not less than 19 people were reported dead among the over one million applicants on Saturday at some centres of the test for the NIS jobs.

APC interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a statement in Lagos, described the incidence as a direct consequence of unemployment problem plaguing the nation.

The party, according to the statement, expressed great distressed at the deaths of the job seekers, adding that the Minister of Interior should bear the direct responsibility for the deaths.

The statement said that APC commiserated with the families of the victims and wished those injured speedy recovery.

It decried governments inability to create jobs for the nations teeming youths, stressing that the number of jobless Nigerians had reached alarming rate.

Massive mindless looting of the public funds that could have been used to create millions of jobs end up in the deep pockets of corrupt government officials without any consequence.

The truth has been laid bare 5,000 or so vacancies declared by NIS attracted over six million applicants, from which over half a million was shortlisted, according to published reports, it stated.

The statement said that the ministry of interior had many questions to answer over the arrangements made for the job tests in 37 venues nationwide.

Is it true that the minister directly presided over the recruitment?

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NIS stampede: APC calls for investigation

The big construction fire in Mission Bay brought to mind how hard the downtown real estate interests and the town's "progressives" fought to keep that once-empty rail yard from becoming a vital part of the city.

Mission Bay was one of the longest-running development fights ever. The downtown office-building owners like Walter Shorenstein didn't want competition from new buildings South of Market, and the progressives up on Potrero Hill didn't want high-rises spoiling their views.

For years the project languished in the political and planning morass of ballot fights, environmental objections and traffic studies, all over whether it was just too big and would change the face of the city.

Sound familiar?

The break in the logjam came when we got UCSF, which was looking to build a new campus in either Alameda or Brisbane, to join the project. We gave them 43 acres. Then we got then-Gov. Gray Davis to agree that one of the science buildings UC was planning to build around the state would go in as well.

Then we pumped up the fact that the biggest shareholder in Catellus, the project's developer, was the state workers retirement fund. Suddenly, what had been attacked as a sweetheart development deal became a do-good public project.

You didn't need a budget analyst's report to confirm that after 10 years, San Francisco's $165 million-a-year homeless program hasn't changed things much.

One walk around Union Square at night, or along Mission Street between First and Main, will show you the problem is as bad as ever.

Some of those folks have been sleeping in the same spot for so long, they're registered to vote there.

But as bad as they look, the downtown sleepers are some of the most peaceful and polite people you will find in the city.

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Mission Bay fire brings long development fight to mind

The All Progressives Congress recently held its inaugural national summit and unveiled a draft code of ethics/manifesto, which may serve as a new beginning for opposition politics in the country, writes JOHN ALECHENU

The opposition All Progressives Congress recently stirred up a controversy when it announced the findings of an opinion poll, conducted on its behalf by KA Research Limited, a privately owned international campaign strategist/research company, based in Brussels, Belgium, as well as Istanbul, Turkey.

Its revelation that the poll scored the President Goodluck Jonathan-administration low on key indices of governance led to a war of words between the opposition and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. Apart from knocks on the Jonathan administration, the poll revealed areas of APCs strengths and weaknesses. The document also exposed the party to what members of the public think about its activities. The polls results also highlight what Nigerians desire most from the government on a scale of preference.

APCs Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who presented the key findings of the opinion polls to the media, described the report as an eyeopener.

He said, The APC candidate held a 10-point lead over the President. By a margin of 44 per cent to 34 per cent (with 22 per cent undecided), the APC candidate was the clear national choice. When asked, In general, do you think things in Nigeria are going in a good direction or bad direction, Nigerians responded that the country was going in a bad direction by more than two-to-one margin (50%-24%).

When asked, What issue would you like the President and National Assembly to focus on most, an overwhelming majority (60%) identified job creation as the dominant issue that the government should address.

When the respondents were asked if Goodluck Jonathan has done nothing to create jobs, and far too many people are still unemployed, decisively, 58 per cent of Nigerians found the position about Jonathan convincing.

The poll revealed that 59 per cent of Nigerians believed Jonathan was doing a bad job in the fight against corruption.

The ruling PDP has since dismissed the contents of the report, describing the outcome of the polls as a prejudiced piece of document, prepared to massage the egos of opposition leaders.

However, what appeared lost in the maze of the debate was the real reason why the APC engaged consultants for this assignment. The party tried to explain that it engaged (foreign) consultants, to improve its electoral fortunes. To achieve this objective, it realised that the old way of doing things would no longer suffice, hence the resort to seeking expert advice.

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APC and road map for a new Nigeria

Interim National Publicity Secretary, All Progressives Congress, Lai Mohammed

The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has expressed worries over what it called avoidable deficiencies in the handling of the ongoing voter registration in the state by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

It described the exercise as shoddy, noting that it was a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise the people of the state from participating in the June 21 governorship election.

The party, in a release signed by the Director of Publicity and Media of the party in the state, Segun Dipe, noted that the shortcomings observed in the handling of the registration exercise in most of the designated centres showed lack of adequate preparation by INEC.

The APC noted that it was a deliberate attempt to short-change the people, stressing that the outcry was based on the facts on the ground.

The APC also blamed INEC for the use of obsolete equipment and inadequacy of staff and materials, noting that the current happenings ran contrary to INECs promise to get it right with the Ekiti governorship election.

The statement reads in part, This is not about one party; it is about a people who want INEC to conduct a credible election for them to have a democratically elected governor in the saddle. It is about a people who do not want to relive their past experience. And it is about a people who do not want to be short-changed by anyone. They deserve to be duly registered without hiccups. They should be encouraged, not discouraged.

The use of faulty or obsolete systems was noticed right from the first day of the exercise in some of the designated centres, where data collected could not be stored in the systems and thus got wiped off immediately. It is, therefore, possible that those whose registration have been concluded and issued the temporary cards may still have their names missing from INECs list. This is likened to the Anambra experience, where the names of those that began with alphabets O-Z could not be found.

Another show of shame is the noticeable skill deficiency displayed by the so called INEC officials. We observed that they most times fidget with the equipment, without readily knowing what to press or how to manipulate them. They even vent their frustration on the innocent citizens. Most times, they would ask impending registrants to wait for hours before they could be registered, if at all. The result of such endless wait is impatience and agitation.

Meanwhile, some politicians in Ikole-Ekiti on Thursday embarked on house-to-house sensitisation of residents, as the continuous voter registration entered its second day.

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Ekiti: APC knocks INEC for poor voter registration