It is a calamity, a painful exit of the beloved ones and a national embarrassment. How does a recruitment exercise lead to the death of innocent applicants who are desirous of a gainful employment instead of roaming the street? When a national tragedy of monumental proportion strikes like the recent Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, recruitment exercise where 20 Nigerians died including the foetus in the three pregnant women, our leaders across the cadres will cry wolf, pretending to sympathise with the bereaved families. Meanwhile, it is the same so-called leaders that have cornered our national commonwealth for their personal aggrandizement.
It is a common saying that “if you do a thing the same way a hundred times, you are likely to get the same result a hundred times”. In 2008, the same exercise by NIS was organized where 20 Nigerians died and our leaders were spitting fire and brimstone, head must roll, Mr. A, B, C must be fired. But till date nobody has been fired to serve as a deterrent to others. The failure of the government to use those culprits as examples encouraged the current mess. In an organized society where leaders have conscience, the Minister of interior and the Comptroller General of NIS would have resigned honourably without prompting. In our own country, who cares if 100 Nigerians die in whatever cause.
The minister was irresponsible, saying, the tragedy struck due to impatience of the applicants. The minister and all others involved should be sacked forthwith. Can you imagine a Minister boasting on the airwave that he won’t resign his appointment as the death was not cause by him and he could not phantom why Nigerians are asking him to resign?
Whoever wants Moro to resign should go to hell since there is no law that compels any office holder to do so. God save us from irresponsible leaders.
One cannot out rightly blame the minister given the adage that “fish starts getting rotten from the head.’’ So, when appointees of government behave irresponsibly, we should look at those who nominated and appointed him/her to the position of authority. Individuals on national assignment ought to be screened properly instead of ‘take a bow and leave’ because one principal officer of the National Assembly nominated and teleguided his or her appointment. Where this happens, as the case at hand, this is the kind of service the nation gets as their sponsors look elsewhere since their families are not affected.
Now, the National Assembly is calling for the head of the minister, what power do they have to enforce the laws on erring public officers like the fatal NIS recruitment exercise? It is only shouting and talk shows Nigerians have witnessed in the last 16 years of democracy. The same lawmakers including state governors, calling for probe and the head of Moro have shared the existing 4,500 vacancies in NIS. So who is National Assembly fooling? Can they exonerate themselves from the complicity in the saga? The same people will also turn around to tell Nigerians they are our representatives. Who are they really representing if not their individual pockets and interest of their immediate families with cronies?
Those who should protect the sanctity of the constitution stab the same document on the head. The same lawmakers have also began with their deceit, saying they are worried about unemployment situation in the country as the phenomenon could lead and trigger revolution. When the Arab Spring started in 2010 in Turkey, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, etc., our lawmakers boasted that, Nigeria’s situation cannot get to that point. Now they have realized that the situation is fast reaching the boiling point. I hope they know how Arab leaders were consumed due to their penchant for greed, nepotism and out-right deceit of the people who they have been taking for granted for many years? Our own day of reckoning is here and staring us in the face.
The National Assembly takes the lion’s share of our national budget, i.e. 25%, and organizes sham public hearings to deceive the nation that they are working and policing tax payers’ money, according to suspended Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, SanusiLamidoSanusi. Nobody is interested in the public hearings any more since Nigerians have discovered that, the exercise is sheer waste of public fund, precious time and organized jamborees. We shall soon get to the point of no return as they continue to loot the national treasury.
With the startling and huge number of applicants that thronged the stadia across the federation for the ill-fated recruitment exercise, the trio of National Assembly, the Executive and the ruling party should bury their heads in shame that a mammoth 6.5 million of their youth population could be so desirous of gainful employment that they promised the nation to make available but have failed woefully to do so. It is shameful, highly irresponsible and a national failure.
Adelere wrote from 41, Airport Road, Lugbe, Abuja
