WHY I DON'T LIKE IMMIGRATION JOB!
It is no longer news that a handful of individuals lost their lives
last Saturday at recruitment centres for Nigerian Immigration Service
(NIS) job. I imagined the number of people who turned for the exercise
and my mind went back to the first time I attended such an event
almost two decades ago (omo, I don old o!)
It was Nigerian Breweries recruitment exercise at the Trade Fair
Complex, Lagos. I got the invitation and took a night bus to Lagos,
with the feeling that there would be about 20 or at most 25 others
there. I got the shocker of my life when I got there and found over
ten thousand people. As far as my eyes could go, there were job
seekers milling around as if we were in some Nazi Concentration Camp!
Yes, Concentration Camp! That is what this land has been turned into
by mindless, gluttonous politicians.
I was at another interview a couple of years later. It was KPMG exams
somewhere in Ikeja, close to Airport Hotel. There were a lot of us
too. We wrote the exams. I passed and was invited for oral interview
at Golden Gate Restaurant, Ikoyi. It was a cold morning. I came by a
night bus again. And we were all kept, sitting on the curb just
outside the gate. There were equally a good number of us. The
highpoint of the interview was that everyone was interviewed by at
least two people. When it got to my turn, it was one Igbo boy. He's
merely a year older than me. We talked. Afterwards I was asked to go,
sit and wait for the next interviewer. I sat by the door, waiting.
This "my guy" abandoned his next interviewee, stood up and went to
tell the security man to ask me to leave. I went downstairs and
waited. After the entire exercise, I learnt everyone was interviewed
by at least one other person. I left. I didn't expect to be called
back. And they didn't bother.
Maybe I failed the interview. But there's nothing wrong in getting a
second opinion! Afterall, every other person did get that.
It is unfortunate that many years after, rather than abate, the
condition of unemployment has become worse. The north where we used to
think has no case of unemployment, is today peopled with a good number
of unemployed graduates. The south is already used to being duped by
employment scammers, some of which are government agencies. It still
surprises me where the CBN and the Finance Ministry get all the
figures they keep reeling out to th world about tremendous successes!
Are we really talking about the same Nigeria? For real?
While youths are roaming the streets, clutching their files and
looking for jobs, octogenerians and their seniors are taking up
political appointments and professors who retired at 70 are being
re-absorbed as contract staff in universities. Tell me, if someone
younger and internet-friendly had organised this NIS recruitment
drive, lives wouldn't have been lost so recklessly. But in a nation
where a whole village of a thousand people can be wiped out in one
night, what is the death of just ten people?
I have seen here and heard that elsewhere there days recruiters visit
universities to interview prospective employees even before they
graduate. What do these politicians from my country learn when they
come here to drop their loot? What will go wrong if they learn at
least one good thing they can apply in my country to cushion the
effects of their kleptomania? Or are they allergic to doing good?
If the right things are done starting from today, we can avert such
disasters in future. If NIS wants to recruit, why shouldn't they have
a regular recruitment procedure that runs yearly or bi-annually? If
government should recruit, why wouldn't there be a regular procedure?
Or is the backdoor exercises they do more dignified?
I guess it is, because we live in a land where people are pleased when
they break the law or when they short-change others! It is a country
where a stupendously rich politician, instead of using his ill-gotten
wealth to help family, friends and cronies, will still scramble for
slots in NIS and other agencies which should ordinarily be left for
the Nigerians they so passionately hate!
I've just been informed that the president summoned some people over
the tragedy. Let's see what comes out of it ... or will it go the same
way like the others before it, where no one answers for any crime?
I am really tired of saying "may the souls of the people that died
rest in peace!" True rest and peace will come to them when this
madness in my country stops. We are not at "war" but we are sending
more candidates to early grave every hour. I pray that one day, the
youths of this land will rise up and say: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
last Saturday at recruitment centres for Nigerian Immigration Service
(NIS) job. I imagined the number of people who turned for the exercise
and my mind went back to the first time I attended such an event
almost two decades ago (omo, I don old o!)
It was Nigerian Breweries recruitment exercise at the Trade Fair
Complex, Lagos. I got the invitation and took a night bus to Lagos,
with the feeling that there would be about 20 or at most 25 others
there. I got the shocker of my life when I got there and found over
ten thousand people. As far as my eyes could go, there were job
seekers milling around as if we were in some Nazi Concentration Camp!
Yes, Concentration Camp! That is what this land has been turned into
by mindless, gluttonous politicians.
I was at another interview a couple of years later. It was KPMG exams
somewhere in Ikeja, close to Airport Hotel. There were a lot of us
too. We wrote the exams. I passed and was invited for oral interview
at Golden Gate Restaurant, Ikoyi. It was a cold morning. I came by a
night bus again. And we were all kept, sitting on the curb just
outside the gate. There were equally a good number of us. The
highpoint of the interview was that everyone was interviewed by at
least two people. When it got to my turn, it was one Igbo boy. He's
merely a year older than me. We talked. Afterwards I was asked to go,
sit and wait for the next interviewer. I sat by the door, waiting.
This "my guy" abandoned his next interviewee, stood up and went to
tell the security man to ask me to leave. I went downstairs and
waited. After the entire exercise, I learnt everyone was interviewed
by at least one other person. I left. I didn't expect to be called
back. And they didn't bother.
Maybe I failed the interview. But there's nothing wrong in getting a
second opinion! Afterall, every other person did get that.
It is unfortunate that many years after, rather than abate, the
condition of unemployment has become worse. The north where we used to
think has no case of unemployment, is today peopled with a good number
of unemployed graduates. The south is already used to being duped by
employment scammers, some of which are government agencies. It still
surprises me where the CBN and the Finance Ministry get all the
figures they keep reeling out to th world about tremendous successes!
Are we really talking about the same Nigeria? For real?
While youths are roaming the streets, clutching their files and
looking for jobs, octogenerians and their seniors are taking up
political appointments and professors who retired at 70 are being
re-absorbed as contract staff in universities. Tell me, if someone
younger and internet-friendly had organised this NIS recruitment
drive, lives wouldn't have been lost so recklessly. But in a nation
where a whole village of a thousand people can be wiped out in one
night, what is the death of just ten people?
I have seen here and heard that elsewhere there days recruiters visit
universities to interview prospective employees even before they
graduate. What do these politicians from my country learn when they
come here to drop their loot? What will go wrong if they learn at
least one good thing they can apply in my country to cushion the
effects of their kleptomania? Or are they allergic to doing good?
If the right things are done starting from today, we can avert such
disasters in future. If NIS wants to recruit, why shouldn't they have
a regular recruitment procedure that runs yearly or bi-annually? If
government should recruit, why wouldn't there be a regular procedure?
Or is the backdoor exercises they do more dignified?
I guess it is, because we live in a land where people are pleased when
they break the law or when they short-change others! It is a country
where a stupendously rich politician, instead of using his ill-gotten
wealth to help family, friends and cronies, will still scramble for
slots in NIS and other agencies which should ordinarily be left for
the Nigerians they so passionately hate!
I've just been informed that the president summoned some people over
the tragedy. Let's see what comes out of it ... or will it go the same
way like the others before it, where no one answers for any crime?
I am really tired of saying "may the souls of the people that died
rest in peace!" True rest and peace will come to them when this
madness in my country stops. We are not at "war" but we are sending
more candidates to early grave every hour. I pray that one day, the
youths of this land will rise up and say: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
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