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Death at the Stadia: Enough is Enough By Tochukwu Ezukanma
The initial response of the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, to the death of twenty one young job applicants, including four pregnant women, at the Nigerian Immigration Service recruitment test, at different stadia in the country epitomized the government of Goodluck Jonathan. His earlier response to the deaths was spontaneous, and therefore, truly reflective of his attitude towards the job seekers, dead job applicants, their bereaved families and the Nigerian masses. His subsequent statements on the issue are not as important because they have been consciously attuned to public expectations and opinion.
From his initial statement, it was obvious that he was neither apologetic nor remorseful, and definitely, not prepared to take responsibility for deaths, injuries, pains and sorrow that were direct consequences of his ineptitude and greed. The minister was quoted as saying “They lost their lives through their impatience”. To blame the dead for their death was reprehensible. It was grossly unfair and most insensitive. It was insulting to the memory of the dead, contemptuous of the bereaved families and grated on the sensibilities of most Nigerians.
With the dangerously high level of unemployment and pervading desperate poverty in the country, did the minister not expect impatience within the ranks of impecunious, jobless, and quite naturally, restless youths amassed in their tens of thousands in open stadia? It did not require prophetic powers to know that bringing together so many (up to 65,000 in some cases) hard pressed, desperate job applicants in one locale for a test portends disaster. That the ministry neglected to make provisions to accommodate for the impatience, and even, desperation of so many applicants was a flagrant error. And those responsible for that act of negligence must be held accountable and punished for what is essentially involuntary manslaughter.
It was superfluous to shortlist 526,650 applicants for less than 4,500 jobs. A motivating factor for including so many applicants for the test was the N1, 000 collected from each candidate. One thousand naira is a paltry sum but when collected in 526,650 places, it added up to a whooping N526 million. There is no evidence that the money ever made it into government coffers. It, most likely, ended up in private pockets: the recruitment consultants, Drexet Nigerian Ltd and a number of government officials.
In essence, that avoidable tragedy resulted from ineptitude, corruption and scornful nonchalance to the welfare of the job-seekers. A job-seeker that participated in the exercise characterized the treatment they received as “inhuman” But then, Abba Moro, in his ineptness, corruption and disdain for ordinary Nigerians is not an aberration in the government of President Goodluck Jonathan; he typifies it.
Ministers are appointed by the president and they serve at his pleasure. Naturally, the ministers’ modus operandi cannot be that different from that of the president. Essentially, it is determined, or at the very least, significantly influenced by the president’s personal examples, expressions and attitudinal disposition. An Igbo adage says that “eze mua amu, ndi odibo ya akuwasiba isi”. This loosely translates to: if the king laughs, his servants will become (or pretend to be) delirious with laughter. The king/president’s aides invariably behave in line with his wishes and the dictates. It is his pronouncements, actions and convictions that shape their conducts.
The Goodluck Jonathan administration is notorious for its anti-people policies. The most egregious of these policies was the more than doubling of the price of petroleum in one swoop. The hardship the price hike visited on Nigerians was compounded by its coldhearted timing. Reneging on an earlier promise not to increase the price of fuel before the March 31st. 2012, the government effected the price increase on January 1, 2012. The immediate consequence of the price increase was the more than doubling of transportation cost and the attendant increment in the prices of consumer goods. It made nonsense of people’s earlier budgets, especially budget for transportation. As such, it left many people that had traveled home for the Christmas and New Year celebrations stranded in their hometowns and villages.
Lately, Nigerians are riveted by allegations of the disappearance of $20bn from the public coffers and the expenditure of more than N10bn on the maintenance and use of chartered planes for the private air travels of the Oil Minister. Apart from greed, kleptomania and allurement for swanky lifestyles, public officials steal and waste public funds because of their contempt for the owners and would-be beneficiaries of the money, the people. The cataloging of acts of disdainful nonchalance for the betterment of the Nigerian masses by the government of President Jonathan is beyond the scope of this article. The point, however, is that Abba Morro in his incompetence, grasping avarice and insensitivity to the plight of the job seekers and the masses of Nigerians exemplified President Goodluck Jonathan and his administration.
The election of Goodluck Jonathan as the president of Nigeria was a monumental political blunder. Not surprisingly, since his election to power, societal vices (theft of public funds, terrorism, kidnapping and all forms of lawlessness) have taken hitherto unknown dimensions in Nigeria. In addition, Nigerians are frustrated with his inability to make good on any of his election promises. They are also sick and tired of his anti-people policies and contemptuous indifference to the continually worsening economic woes of the generality of Nigeria. But the beauty of democracy is in its empowerment of the people to remove bad leaders. Goodluck Jonathan is bad leader, and before he totally runs Nigeria aground, we, the people, must, in 2015, tell him with our votes that enough is enough. |