SOUR GRAPES FOR THE DEAD According to Nigerian Newspaper Reports, President Goodluck Jonathan has ordered the cancellation of the disastrous recruitment exercise of the Nigerian Immigration Service. The presidential directive was given Wednesdays Federal Executive Council meeting and we are told, the president further directed that all those who lost their loved ones would have automatic slot for three applicants, one of whom must be a woman. Those who sustained injuries will also be automatically employed. I appreciate the rare show of compassion from the Federal Government, but is it not laughable? That the compensation is an offer of three slots to all those who lost their loved ones - does this not spark family feuds for more deaths to occur? It raises more issues. What happens when the lost one is the only one in a family. Even if it were not so, how do you determine the three? What of the pregnant women that perished? How does this decision apply to them? To me this decision was not well thought out and it is a disgrace given the calibre of personalities that make up the Executive Council. Ask any Head of Service and he will quote from the statute books, what General Orders have been breached in this recruitment sham, and what steps are provided for the restoration of public confidence following such a failure of Government. Are the breaches of a criminal nature? Procedures are also provided for establishing roles played by individual Government Officials in the tragedy, apportioning blame and commensurate punishment. All this is to ensure justice and prevent re occurrence which eventuality helps build a culture of our official lethargy and impunity. We must condemn the criminality in raking in revenue through an online application scheme that sold forms 20 times in excess of known available vacancies. We need to know the truth of how much was involved as the public is looking at a figure of N9billion raked in at the gamble, for gamble it was. We should address refunds and declare that henceforth online application fees must be fixed and regulated by Government as should be the case. The fees for consultants to such schemes must be such that do not lure Government functionaries into making capital out of the public plight - plights that Government should have addressed in the first instance. I have in my memory, two immigration officers, one holding a ream of examination sheets, trapped amidst a multitude of job seekers, trying to share the papers same time as job seekers were reaching out to help themselves. In bewilderment he throws out wads of the paper at distances until in the end, he wrestled to the ground. Did he imagine for one moment that results could be made of those exams? The other immigration officer must be an old barrack boy for he whisked out his belt and was whipping whoever was near him madly. He is lucky the multitude have respect for uniforms and may be too young to appreciate Fela Anikulapo Kutis Uniform na cloth na tailor dey sew am. He should offer a thanksgiving it ended well. Nowhere in the world is recruitment handled in this way.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 08:16:03 +0000
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