ONLY IN NIGERIA(IMMIGRATION RECRUITMENT ISSUES)

By the time you are reading this, at the very
minimum the Minister of the Interior and the
head of the Nigerian Immigration Service
should no longer be in their positions.
For the first time in my life, I honestly feel
ashamed to call myself a Nigerian. But a
Nigerian I am and a Nigerian I will always be.
As it had been for a number of years now, the
NIS held a paid recruitment exercise. In the
wildest imaginations of those who conceived,
planned and executed this scam and sham, at
no time did they envisage the bewildering
events of Saturday, March 15, 2014. The over
520,000 applicants that suffered all through
Saturday clearly demonstrates the hopeless
state of unemployment and underemployment
in Nigeria.
The NIS looks like a great public organisation
to work for. From ‘tips’ to ‘runs’, this
glamorous paramilitary arm of government is
a place of “limitless” possibilities.
Yearly, some of the applicants on that fateful
day had unsuccessfully undertaken the same
harrowing recruitment exercise. With the
reality of their everyday existence staring
them in the faces, many chose to believe the
impossible — may be Saturday, 15th March,
2014, would be their breakthrough!
A medical doctor colleague of mine (let’s call
him Humphrey) was fortunate enough to have
escaped from the jaws of the NIS recruitment
scam. In 2007 while working as a resident
doctor in a Lagos-based private hospital, he
earned a monthly gross pay of N100,000.
Frustrated by his standard of living, some
friends advised him to apply for employment
into the NIS as it was his passport to
abundance in life.
Convinced, that year, he obtained the form
and on a Saturday, he showed up near the old
Federal Secretariat, Ikoyi, Lagos. He was
dressed in a clean, well pressed shirt and dark
trousers with a matching tie. He had a low
haircut and his “teddy” (beard) was perfectly
styled.
To his surprise, he met thousands of
applicants in white T-shirts, white shorts and
white canvas shoes — he was the odd man
out. He hurriedly bought a white T-shirt,
white shorts and white canvas shoes for
N300, N250 and N1,000 respectively. There
was a syndicate around the corner selling this
merchandise to desperate applicants, for,
without the kit, one would not be allowed to
partake.
They were instructed to run from the start
point to a school somewhere in Ikoyi. The
gate of the school would be shut after the
first 100 persons had entered. Though there
were road safety officials at strategic
junctions along the route they were to take,
there were no ambulances or any sign of
emergency medical personnel. No checks
were conducted to ascertain the general
physical fitness of the applicants (including
pregnant women) before the run commenced.
The whistle sounded and off they went. Ten
minutes later, a breathless Humphrey stopped
running and trudged on till he reached the
gate of the school — a journey of over 45
minutes. The gate was already locked and he
swears that there was no sign that anyone had
entered the gate. It was at that point he
realised that he still had an option. He could
go back to his N100,000 per month job and
that was how he was never again tempted to
apply to the NIS.
Today, he is a resident doctor at the Lagos
State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja; and
come next year, he will become a consultant.
But this is not the story of the typical under-
employed or unemployed Nigerian! At the last
count, at least 17 “innocent and exploited”
Nigerians had lost their lives in at least four
centres (Abuja, Minna, Benin and Port
Harcourt), including some pregnant women
and their unborn babies. This brings me to
the concept of “Only in
Nigeria” (#OnlyInNigeria).
#OnlyInNigeria would a recruitment exercise
for less than 5,000 persons involve over
520,000 persons on a single day; hundreds of
thousands in each stadium.
#OnlyInNigeria does online/social recruiting
take a back seat in an era where even
university entrance exams are beginning to be
conducted online! A multinational firm once
asked us to recruit a hundred people for an
entry level role. We planned to shortlist three
times that number (i.e. 300) for the physical
interviews. Our advert on an online job portal
generated over 16,000 applicants.
We were then able to shortlist about 200
persons that met our requirements. In the
case of NIS, the criteria for short-listing
should have been more stringent so as to
reduce the number of eligible candidates.
They should have targeted no more than five
or 10 times the final intake for the physical
interviews (i.e. about 25,000).
To select the 25,000 over a period of weeks,
the 520,000 candidates should have written
supervised online tests in large Internet-
enabled ICT centres that are available in major
cities across the country. The NIS, for the
21st Century, must be digital-enabled with a
digitally savvy workforce. It should have
engaged various exam bodies who are
experienced in handling large scale
examinations!
#OnlyInNigeria would the head of the NIS and
Moro, the Minister for Interior, neither be
sacked nor prosecuted until there is an
outcry!
#OnlyInNigeria does greed blind the eyes,
dull the senses and allow parochial political
and selfish economic gains to supersede the
common good!
#OnlyInNigeria does a public recruitment
exercise lead to an increased maternal
mortality rate — Millennium Development
Goals.
#OnlyInNigeria are dead victims blamed for
being impatient and unruly!
#OnlyInNigeria do serving public officers
reject blame for what is obviously a
recurrent, unrepentant and unrelenting case
of greed, corruption, ineptitude,
incompetence and wickedness!
#OnlyInNigeria do public “overlords” blame
everyone else but themselves for failure to
lead or manage!
#OnlyInNigeria do political holders set up
“their own committees and stick around to
salvage the mess they created” — no shame,
no conscience, no sense of responsibility!
What then is the true value of an unemployed
Nigerian in the eyes of the Nigerian
government?
The answer is obvious: N1, 000. That’s why I
say “Moro Must Go” (#MoroOut)!

Copyright PUNCH.