Ini Sunday, Uyo
No fewer than 10 persons reportedly slumped yesterday while queuing to collect employment forms for Akwa Ibom State civil service job.
The state government had at the recent labour day celebration on May 1, 2017, announced plans to employ 3,000 primary school teachers to boost the free and compulsory education policy.
According to Governor Udom Emmanuel, the decision became necessary to stem the high unemployment situation in the largely civil service State.
He warned that only qualified National Certificate in Education (NCE) graduates would be picked, on merit, adding that cutting of corners and ‘godfatherism’ would not be tolerated in the process of picking the right people for the job.
But yesterday, the two venues including the West Itam and Aka Comprehensive Secondary Schools, on the Uyo metropolis was thronged by thousands of job seekers drawn from the 31 Local Government Areas, leading to a stampede.
“There was a serious stampede caused by some desperate and impatient applicants, who jumped the queues”, Mrs. Eneanwan Eyo, one of the applicants who claimed to have graduated since 1998 without a job, lamented.
According to her, “the action of the desperate people forced the crowd to surge forward for the forms, and several people collapsed in the process”, adding, “the affected applicants were rushed to the hospital, while others were revived”.
Another applicant, Nsidibe Ubom, who said she left Education College since 2001, blamed the stampede on government decision to concentrate the exercise only in Uyo, the State capital.
“How do you expect thousands of unemployed people from all the 31 Local Government Areas to move to Uyo, the capital for employment forms?”, he lamented.
There was a general agreement among the applicants that the government could decentralize the exercise and make the forms available for applicants at various local governments of origin of the candidates.
“It is unlikely that this exercise that is expected to last for just three days will be completed within the stipulated period”, Ubom noted.
No government official was willing to comment on the incident or offer explanation for the choice of Uyo as the only center for the 3-day exercise.
