Following yesterday’s announcement by the Federal Government that families of applicants, who died in last Saturday’s Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, recruitment exercise nationwide, have been offered three slots each, while those that sustained injuries would be automatically absorbed into the service, countless jobseekers have turned the National Hospital, Abuja, into a Mecca of sorts in their desperate attempt to be counted among the injured.
It was learnt that early Thursday, those, who hospital sources described as “wounded racket”, visited the center displaying various degrees of injuries they sustained during the stampede at the National Stadium, Abuja at the weekend, demanding to be put on the hospital’s list of wounded applicants.
However, they were not among the estimated 40 injured applicants rushed to the National Hospital for treatment on the wake of the stampede that left no fewer than 19 applicants dead nationwide.
While their claims have not been ruled out completely, a source at the hospital said, “These are most likely people, who were treated in other hospitals, not here.
“It is impossible to say for sure anything about their injuries or when they got injured. It could have been on Saturday or any time since then or they could even injure themselves. People are desperate”, the source added.
Meanwhile, the Director for Information Service, National Hospital, Mr. Tayo Haastrup, has said that the hospital is treading cautiously over the release of the remaining six dead applicants still in its morgue, so as not to release the corpses to the wrong people.
He said: “We don’t want to release the bodies to just anybody especially now that they announced they were going to compensate the families of the dead victims. We want to be very sure. You know how people are”.
