Again, the ineptitude of the men in the corridors of power has been brought to the fore, and it will be no surprise if those who should honourably leave the cabinet won’t leave even in the face of their failure. Why, for example, will the Ministry of Interior and the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) put over 525,000 applicants in line for less than 5,000 jobs?
Already, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have resorted to their usual blame game that clearly shows the party officials as equally in- sensitive as the officials of the NIS. Government’s cancellation of the recruitment exercise is not enough to assuage the pains of Nigerians over the lost ones.
And to worsen the situation, Interior Minister, Abba Moro, who preferred consultants to allowing the Immigration authority or the joint board of the Immigration, Prisons, and Fire Service conduct the exercise, was on television the other day to display the kind insensitivity and arrogance that has become the trademark of government in our country.
We all remember that the minister allegedly orchestrated the forced retirement of former Immigration boss, Mrs. Roseline Uzodinma, because of this same matter. She had conducted the recruitment exercise, but it was cancelled and she was sent packing only for the ministry’s consultants to bungle it. Now, the woman has been vindicated.
Continue reading after the cut....
Undoubtedly, the Ministry of Interior has many questions to answer on the shoddy arrangements made for the job tests in 37 venues nationwide. Is it true that the minister directly presided over the recruitment and money-making venture? Why will a government seek to profit from a malaise it created by charging hapless job seekers 1,000 Naira each? Why was a huge number of applicants invited for only 5,000 jobs or less? Why was such a shoddy arrangement made for the test when so many people were invited? Could the test not have been done in batches to avoid a stampede? How much, indeed, was realized from this glaring extortion of job seekers? What happened to the money? These are some of the questions begging for answers.
At least, if a government cannot create jobs, it must neither profit from its incompetence nor send the victims of its ineptitude to their early graves.
APC did not fail to throw in a commiseration with the families of the victims and wished those who were injured quick recovery, but its PDP counterpart, through Olisa Metuh, did not fail to reply. The PDP said it was bad for the APC to condescend so low to trivialize and politicize weighty issues bordering on human lives while the families of the deceased were still mourning, all in a bid to score a cheap political point.
Abba Moro was said to have consoled with the grieving families in the hospital in Abuja, but as soon as he came before the cameras, he took on the posture of an insensitive man, blaming the victims for their impatience.
These are his words: “Right from the beginning, I gave you assurance that this exercise was going to be transparent but it was going to be cost-effective. That we are going to avoid (the mistake of the past), where all persons converge on Abuja. And so yesterday (Saturday, March 15), we tried to decentralise. We set up 37 recruitment centres across the country, including the Federal Capital Territory, and posted senior officers of the ministry, including Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and the police across the country. And now this mistake was worse than the one before it.
He claimed that 526,650 persons applied for the jobs nationwide, but he did not say a word about the one thousand naira collected from each of the applicants.
Mrs. Helen Mark, wife of the Senate President, has in a statement expressed shock at the reports linking her with the botched recruitment exercise, describing the rumour as a mere fabrication of the imagination of those behind it.
Her words: “It is very strange to me because I do not know the consultant that organised the recruitment exercise neither did I play any role in the recruitment exercise. I have no relationships of any sort and in whatever form with the said consultant. This moment demands solemnity and mourning of the precious souls that were lost in the tragic incidents that occurred last Saturday. It is not a time to settle political scores and I will therefore leave those dragging my name into this painful death of our youths to their consciences and unto God…” As a mother, I honestly sympathise with the parents of these youths as well as the nation in general over the loss of our children.” Surely, the end is yet to heard of this national calamity.
- Abba Adakole [abbaadakole@gmail.com]
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