(From Fred Ezeh, Abuja)
No fewer than 191,000 candidates seeking career opportunities in the Nigeria Immigration Service and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) participated in the Computer Based Test (CBT) recruitment examination conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Monday.
The examination was a platform to choose candidates that would fill the 9,460 vacant positions in both the Immigration service and NSCDC.
A breakdown of the figure as confirmed by the Civil Defence, Correctional, Fire and Immigration Services Board, indicated that 113,000 are Civil Defence candidates, while 78,000 candidates are for Immigration.
The Secretary of the Civil Defence, Correctional, Fire and Immigration Services Board, Yakmut Alhassan Saleh, who spoke to journalists at one of the examination centres in Abuja, appreciated the seamless conduct of the recruitment examination by JAMB.
He explained that the choice of JAMB for the conduct of the recruitment examination was due to their proven records in the conduct of CBT examinations, and to also ensure transparency and avoid rancour and confusion that trailed similar exercise conducted a few years ago.
Yakmut said: ‘We need to go through a transparent method of recruitment exercise this time and it has to start from the word go. This is just one component of the exercise. After this, we will go into physical and medical as well as psychometric exercise. We want to give a fair opportunity to every candidate to prove that he or she has the merit and requirements that we need.
‘We have over 190,000 candidates out of which 113,000 are Civil Defence, and for Immigration, we have 78,000 candidates across 126 centres in Nigeria. The examination is broken into three phases; we have the one for graduates and HND, NCE and OND and the third one for secondary school (leavers).
‘The batches for the examination are in three sessions to four sessions based on the number of candidates per centre.’
Yakmut, however, confirmed that the result of the examinations will be immediate, adding that the second phase of the exercise will commence as soon the CBT examination is concluded successfully.
“We are going into the second phase, immediately we get the results. We will shortlist for physical and medical checkups before 15 December (2020) IPPIS and capturing will commence, and they will now go for six months training for specialisation.
While commending JAMB for the orderliness witnessed in the conduct of the exam, the Board’s secretary said the recruitment process has been free with no candidates expecting to pay any money.
Some of the candidates, who bared their minds on the conduct of the exam, praised JAMB and the Board for the hitch-free exercise, stressing that no issue of network problem was recorded during the examination.
