A Futile Race

Job-seekers

The just- concluded recruitment exercise by the Nigeria Immigration and Prisons Service aptly demonstrates the criminal neglect of the welfare of youths by the nation’s authorities
By Okechukwu Obenta, Awka
t is a known fact that even lower animals are conscious of the fact that they should make provisions for their survival in future. This realisation probably accounts for why if squirrel is cracking palm-kernel, it places its tail on the unripe ones, apparently to reassure itself that there are fruits it will eat in the future.
In the same vein, in any sane human society, the authorities usually place high premium on programmes that will guarantee proper development of youths and ensures improvement of their welfare. This is so largely because apart from the fact that they constitute the most productive segment of the society, the future of any given society lies in their hands.
But sadly, the attitude of the Nigerian authorities – both past and present–towards this universally acclaimed principle of placing high premium on the development of the youth appear to be in the negative. The just-concluded recruitment exercise conducted by the nation’s Immigration and Prisons Service, no doubt, aptly magnified this misplacement of priority.
In the views of some informed persons, apart from the fact that the death toll recorded among the applicants who participated in this year’s recruitment exercise is “inexcusable,” the number of applicants who turned out for the recruitment clearly demonstrated the level of neglect of the welfare of the youths by “all levels of governments in this country.”
According to reports, about 26 of the applicants lost their lives nationwide during the recruitment exercise which was held at the various state capitals in the country, including Abuja, the nation’s seat of power. In Awka, the Amambra state capital, two persons died; Enugu, four; Umuahia, two; Asaba, four; Kwara, two; Bauchi; one, Kaduna, seven and Abuja, four.
Meanwhile, several other applicants were said to have been hospitalised as a result of the unfortunate incident which basically occurred as a result of fatigue and stampede due to the large number of applicants that were involved. While some of the applicants died while taking part in the race which was ordered by the recruitment officials, others lost their lives in a stampede that occurred as some desperate ones struggled to gain entry into the arena.
Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State has already visited the State University (ESUT) Teaching Hospital, Enugu where some of the victims were hospitalised and promised automatic employment to the survivors numbering about 21. He also pledged that the state government would foot the medical expenses of all those treated in the hospital. Governor Chime expressed deep concern over those who lost their lives in the exercise. On his part, Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State as at Monday July 14 was making desperate contacts to confirm if any of the applicants who participated in the recruitment exercise held in the state at Ekwueme Square and the Women Development Centre, respectively in Awka, the state capital actually died.
Mike Udah, Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Governor told The Source that the state government had not received any report indicating that any of the job-seekers died.
But Joshua Kayode Ayo, the state comptroller of Immigration has confirmed that one applicant died. But sources at the venue of recruitment told The Source that the number of those who lost their lives were actually two. One of the victims was said to have died as a result of a heavy dose of tear-gas he inhaled when some Immigration security officials threw canisters of tear-gas at the venue to disperse some of the rampaging job-seekers ; the other reportedly slumped and died during the race they were asked to run.
In fact, the experiences of the applicants during the recruitment exercise was quite appalling. Some of who participated in the exercise told The Source that they have been unemployed for between five to 10 years. Probably afraid that they might be witch- hunted, most of them preferred to speak on condition of anonymity. One of the female job seekers, an NCE holder, said she has been unemployed since the last 10 years she graduated from school. But one of the applicants who summoned courage and disclosed his name, Benjamin Eze, a graduate of Accountancy, lamented that he has been at home doing nothing since he graduated from school five years ago.
Eze: “I have been unemployed since 2004. It is too difficult staying at home, just doing nothing.” He lamented that his hope to end his plight has again been dashed as he was disqualified from the recruitment on grounds which he described as flimsy. According to him, the recruitment officials had simply told him that he was below the acceptable height and that his foot is not curved.
One other applicant at the Ekwueme square venue of recruitment exercise narrated his experiences to The Source thus: “They say I am up to 30 years, but I was born in 1982, so my age is now 24 years. They just told me to go away that I am not up to. But I am up to, I have eight credits in my O-level and OND certificate which I am sure qualify me for job. But I am disappointed, what will I do again? All my hope is that I will make it here, my height is okay, my result is okay. Everything is okay, so I don’t know what is happening. This is a kind of injustice.”
Those who reacted to the death of the job-seekers insisted that governments at all levels, both state and federal, are all guilty as they were of the view that the incident was a mark of government’s insensitivity to the welfare of the youths. In fact, Tochukwu Udoji, chairman, Anambra State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), and Evangelist Elliot Uko, president, Igbo Youth Movement were furious over the death of the job-seekers.
As far as the NUJ state boss is concerned, the death of the applicants is “inexcusable.” Uko, however, in his own reaction insists that a probe should be carried out into the “many deaths” so as to find out those responsible and appropriate punishment be meted out to them. Udoji was however categorical that it was criminal ordering such a rigorous exercise that could claim their lives. Besides, she expressed the view that the number of those who turned out for the recruitment was a mark of failure by the government to cater for the youths. She insisted that a situation where between 7,000 to 10,000 applicants scrambled for just between 15 and 17 job slots allocated to each state simply brought to the fore the unemployment rate among the youths.
Besides the loss of lives recorded during the recruitment exercise, the rumour making the rounds that the positions being sought for by the applicants had already been filled by applicants who have people in the top echelon of the nation’s leadership, was to serve as another source of worry to the applicants. In fact, some of the desperate applicants were defrauded of various sums of money, ranging between N120,000 and N150,000 by some fraudulent and criminally-minded officials of the Immigration and prisons service who promised them that with such payment they would get them a placement.
Udoji even alluded to this sad development as according to her “most saddening is that most of these positions are alleged to have already been filled up at the national level. So, what is the gain in bringing out these young men and ladies to die for nothing?’
His Grace, Most Rev. Emmanuel Chukwuma, Bishop of the Enugu diocese of Anglican Communion, had a few days before the recruitment exercise criticised those in-charge of the nation’s political affairs for their failure to provide job opportunities to the teeming youths of the country. The outspoken Anglican priest spoke on Thursday, July 10, at the Enugu Industrial site of Innoson Group of Companies, a private firm that currently has a total of about 1,200 workforce. The occasion was the presentation of MANCAP certificate to the industrial outfit by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON). The clergy noted that it was an irony that one person through his business concerns currently employs so much and through another newly completed factory where over 1,000 job opportunities would be made available to job-seekers, while the political leaders in the country only busied themselves stealing huge sums of money from the national treasury which if properly invested would have guaranteed employment opportunity to many youths. Present at the occasion was the national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Sir, Victor Umeh.
The Anglican Bishop stated that on daily basis, hundreds of unemployed members of his church besiege his office pleading for job opportunities to be found for them and decried that such sad situation notwithstanding, “the people wake up every morning to hear that one top government official or the other has stolen so,so,so and so mind-bogging billions of naira from the national treasury.”
Although Chukwuma contended that the crime of lack of employment creation dates back to the era of successive governments, he, however, was of the view that the situation has worsened as a result of an apparent “lack of focus by the current President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua administration.” As far as the Anglican clergy is concerned, therefore, Nigerian political leaders have failed the country.