FG Reviews Guidelines For Recruitment Into Paramilitary Agencies

The Federal Government has announced the review of the guidelines for recruitment into the Civil Defence, Fire, Correctional, and Immigration Services, saying henceforth 35 per cent of recruitment into the services would be allocated to women.

The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, disclosed this on Friday in Abuja at the end of the meeting of the Board of the Civil Defence, Fire, Correctional, and Immigration Services (CDFCISB).

He said the 35 per cent allocation of slots to women was in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu.

Tunji-Ojo, who spoke through the Secretary of the Board, Ja’afaru Ahmed, was flanked at the briefing by the Comptroller-General of Immigration, Caroline Wura-Ola Adepoju, the Commandant-General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Dr Ahmed AAudi, and the Controller General of the Nigeria Correctional Service, NCoS, Haliru Nababa, as well as the Controller General of the Federal Fire Service, FFS, Abdulganiyu Jaji.

According to the minister, the ongoing recruitment into the Federal Fire Service would be based on the new guidelines, which would focus largely on professionalism, gender mainstreaming, and federal character principles.

Tunji-Ojo said, “The federal government, through the board, has approved the review of the guidelines for recruitment into and promotion in all four services under the Ministry of Interior.

“The development also comes with the modernisation of the operations of the Nigeria Immigration Service. The modernization is going to be all-encompassing: training, recruitment, promotion, professionalism, capacity building, and deployment of cutting-edge technologies.”

The minister announced that the services would, in due course, release timelines for recruitment into all the services.

He warned Nigerians interested in applying not to patronise scammers, saying that the government is already aware of some scammers who are asking for money for recruitment into the Fire Service.

“This is to appeal to Nigerians not to patronise scammers. Anyone asking you to pay money to be recruited into any of the agencies is a scammer. We are aware of their activities, and we will go after them.”

Shedding more light on the modernization of the Immigration Service, the Comptroller-General, Mrs Adepoju, said the service would emphasise capacity building and specialisation along professional lines to ensure that promotion is not a reward for redundancy.