Human rights lawyer, Tolu Babaleye, has petitioned the Federal Government over the 30-year age limit for the ongoing recruitment by the Nigeria Immigration Service.
The NIS, in a recruitment advert earlier published in a national daily, pegged the maximum age limits for applicants at 30 years while doctors and pharmacists must not be more than 35 years.
A copy of the petition made available to Saturday PUNCH was addressed to the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila.
The petition read in part, we wish to call on the Management of Immigration Service and the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Senate of the Federal Republic to Immediately remove that age barrier or change it to 40 years and sustain this for the next 10 years to take care of the backlog of employable Nigeria Youths and graduates from the Universities, the Polytechnic or Colleges of Education.”
However, the legal practitioner in an interview with our correspondent, said such an age limit should be erased from recruitment exercises in the country, adding that such a peg was far from the realities on the ground.
According to him, the current situation in the country had left many youths jobless and above the specified age, adding that several youths who graduated from higher institutions ended up wasting years without securing a job.
“The petition is about the Nigerian youths and their rights. We wrote to the National Assembly and other agencies to stop using Nigerian youths as victims. (the) Immigration service has just released an advert for recruitment into the service and they placed the maximum entry age at 30 years.
“This is unwarranted and insensitive on the part of the government because Nigerian youths are expected to study for at least four years in the university after passing through the huddles of getting admission,” he said.
The lawyer added, “Even the ones who graduated early could not access jobs for five years and more and by the time the job opportunity will come as we have with Immigration now and many others like them, the prospective applicants would have crossed that 30-year age limit, It’s unfair.
“We have written the petition to the National Assembly, Immigration and Customs for them to see reasons why they need to remove that peg of 30 years as the age limit for recruitment. In advanced countries, there is no discrimination on age. Everybody can work and as long as they can work, no age is useless.”
