Just about a year ago, Rose Uzoma, then Nigeria Immigration Service Comptroller General was retired from service owing to a recruitment scandal. One year on, the NIS does not just remain an organisation widely known for its sham recruitment process, it has added a dangerous element to it; having applicants die at its test centres. As of the last count, almost 20 people were reportedly killed because the NIS saw an opportunity to raise N1,000 each from jobless, hapless Nigerians. Where else in the world would you find an organisation try to do job tests for 700,000 people? If you are desperate enough to raise hundreds of millions of naira just to have Nigerian citizens apply for a job, you should at least be fair enough to organise the tests without fatal costs. It used to be that the only risk available when applying to take a job is that of not getting the job. This is no longer the case, especially with the Nigeria Immigration Service. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Abba Moro, suggested that those who died were responsible for their own death because they were not patient. The minister stated, “The applicants lost their lives due to impatience; they did not follow the laid down procedures spelt out to them before the exercise. Many of them jumped through the fences of affected centres and did not conduct themselves in an orderly manner to make the exercise a smooth one. This caused stampede and made the environment unsecure.” This is not only insensitive; it also shows that Moro is incompetent and irresponsible. The least he could have down would have been to take responsibility.
But for Nigeria’s rising Gross Domestic Poverty, you’d not see some 600,000 people apply for just about 4,000 jobs. What we saw on Saturday, March 15, happened to be the biggest answer yet, to the question: Is Nigeria’s unemployment rate increasing or decreasing? The pictures tell the story better as the stadia were filled across the geopolitical zones while tests also took place in state capitals. If anyone had a doubt about whether there are jobs for Nigerians out there, the NIS test showed us we are far from where we ought to be in terms of job creation. Something has to give. The NIS cannot shirk its responsibility on this matter. Those who lost their lives did because the NIS failed to provide a conducive environment for them to take the test.
If this were a sane country, Moro would have resigned. He would have taken the top echelons of the NIS with him. Let us take it that due to Nigerian “bigmanism”, Moro couldn’t take personal responsibility, shouldn’t the leadership of the NIS have owned up? Over and again, we see people woefully fail at their postings yet remain at such postings as long as they remain loyal to whoever the president or governor is. If there are no consequences for failure, failure becomes the norm. This is why we are where we are today as a country; continually failing to create and enforce disincentives against vices, failures and criminality. We appear to only offer incentives; if these incentives covered the activities that help grow our country, one could understand, but our incentives only find those who do their bit and contribute their quota towards the continued destruction of our political and socio-economic fabric. The list is endless but the point in recent times would be the fact that, while some credible Nigerians were ignored, some politically exposed individuals were the ones called upon by the government to help join the National Conference to fashion out the way forward for our country. For instance, a former Governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamiyeseigha, is not only an ex-convict, he remains a law fugitive. Chief Bode George would want the world to believe that because his conviction was somehow overturned by the courts, he never should have gone to jail. A former Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili, on his part, simply got an injunction that prevents the state from trying him on several corruption charges. In the midst of it all, Nigeria charges on with the likes of these ones still pulling the strings.
The average Nigerian continues to be treated like a slave in their own country. Very few Nigerians would be shocked to find out half of the jobs the victims of the ill-fated NIS test went out to jostle for have already been apportioned to cronies who would have their own take up the jobs. Again, very few Nigerians will be shocked to find out those who took or would take these jobs never moved a muscle on that day while those other Nigerians went trooping out of their homes.
This system cannot be sustained. Every new day that passes in this country without the establishment of socio-economic justice is a day that takes us closer to the brink of our collective destruction. The anger is there, all the elements of danger and trouble are there, all it takes is a trigger. The trigger could easily have been the NIS fiasco exams but we wait another day. Nigeria risks its very own future as long as the masses continue to be fed hunger for food, hopelessness for hope and pain and penury for the promise of prosperity. One day, something will give.
The Federal Government must stop pretending it can provide all Nigerians with jobs. The business of government ought to be to create an enabling environment and no one would stop Nigerians from creating and providing jobs for fellow citizens. Our people are naturally enterprising and driven. But for government’s continued stance on getting in the way of entrepreneurs through ill thought-out policies and the near absence of infrastructure, few would doubt Nigerians will thrive if the system worked. That the bulk of production in our country goes to fuelling generators says all that needs to be said about the uphill task of running one’s business in this country.
The tragedy of the NIS test is avoidable; government’s continued effort at providing the enabling environment for entrepreneurs to thrive cannot be overemphasised. Given the same resources as their government prefers to waste mostly through corruption and mismanagement, Nigerians will make this country work. Our people are not without ideas; our people are not lazy, only our government is so big it won’t get out of the way for entrepreneurs to thrive.
While we wait for a system that works for the entrepreneur, those who continue to set Nigerians up for death must not go unpunished. The organisers of the NIS test caused the death of pregnant women and other Nigerians that fateful day. As long as they get away with it, it will happen again under the same ministry or another one. Those behind that fiasco must be made to answer questions starting from the rationale behind making people pay to apply for Federal Government jobs, to setting up examination centres that were nothing but death traps. Someone has to pay for these things but as long as no one pays, the system will pay because whatever evil goes unpunished in a society will only thrive. Corruption has reached unprecedented levels for obvious reasons; our government is its biggest catalyst. Like corruption, like incompetence, step by step, day by day and man by man, we will continue to build a country that does not work as long as those who help to not make it work continue to go unpunished. We can do better than this.
•Omojuwa, Editor, AfricanLiberty.org, wrote in via mromojuwa@gmail.com
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