President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday queried the Minister of Interior, Mr. Abba Moro, and the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Immigration Service, Mr. David Paradang, over the stampede that claimed 18 lives at the venues of the recruitment exercise by the NIS on Saturday.

They were summoned to the Presidential Villa, Abuja, to explain the circumstances that led to the incident which a source said had portrayed the present administration in bad light.

On their arrival, the two officials first met for about three hours with the Chief of Staff to the President, Brig.-Gen. Jones Arogbofa (retd.), in his office.

A source said they used the opportunity of the meeting with Arogbofa to marshal the arguments they would present before the President.

At the end of that parley, the CoS led the minister and the NIS boss to meet the President for close to an hour.

He also led them out of the President’s office at about 2.30pm.

None of them were willing to talk to State House correspondents at the end of their encounter with the President.

Prior to their arrival, Jonathan had met behind closed doors with the Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Abubakar.

Another source said the meeting with Abubakar also centred on the same subject matter.

Abubakar was said to have been ordered to investigate the matter.

Meanwhile the Nigeria Immigration Service has said the recruitment tests it carried out nationwide were successfully conducted in 31 states of the federation.

This is contained in the e-recruitment report submitted to the Minister of Interior, Mr Abba Moro, a copy of which was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

According to the report, only Port Harcourt, Niger, Jigawa and the FCT recorded casualties.

It said that over 16 deaths were recorded in these states and about 20 persons sustained injuries and were currently receiving treatment.

The report said that while immigration officers in Ogun were pelted during the exercise, the exercise in Lagos state was cancelled due to unruly conduct of applicants.

While confirming the report to NAN in an interview, Moro said that the ministry still intended to continue with the recruitment of successful candidates. He said that the exercise which was cancelled in Lagos would still be held on a later date.

The minister said although the ministry had thoroughly prepared for the successful conduct of the exercise, it did not anticipate the large crowd that showed up in various centres.

“We were working with the exact number that applied which is over 500,000 and officers had been deployed to handle this number.

“We did not anticipate that even persons who did not apply and not eligible to sit for the exam will come making the stadia very crowded and unmanageable” he said.

He said that although officials did not thoroughly manage the crowd during the exercise, he called for understanding as the ministry would investigate the situation.