Naija Blues!

 




 In a classic Nigerian government move, President Goodluck Jonathan has reportedly directed that three employment slots be reserved for the families of those who died during the exercise nationwide. He said one of the three beneficiaries must be a female.

The source added that Jonathan also directed that all those who sustained injuries and were receiving treatment in hospitals be given automatic employment in the immigration service.
Considering the peculiarities of this particular case, I would say OK, reasonable move. Is it a smart move though?

At the risk of sounding insensitive, I would think there should be better ways of compensating both the injured and the bereaved.

For job positions that require specific skill sets, methinks ordering that the injured be given automatic employment, in itself defeats the whole purpose of the recruitment exercise.

Question is, are these injured ones the best candidates for those positions? Do they have the requisite skills to adequately fill those vacancies or is it just a question of filling vacancies these days?

And again, why is our sense of perception and justice in this country so twisted? Imagine the U.S. government offering all the victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme a refund of money lost or offering to compensate the families of those whom the Tsarnaev brothers slaughtered during the Boston Marathon in April 2013 without the vigorous pursuit of the perpetrators and the perception that justice had been served. It's called closure! It's enough compensation for many people just to know that those responsible have been made to face the music.

So, imagine what many families of the dead are feeling right now knowing that Abba Moro and David Parradang are still in office and would probably not receive more than a slap on the wrist for causing the deaths of 19 job seekers after dispossessing them of N1billion of money they don't have! It's outrageous!

You know what's funnier? Let's ask Abba, Parradang and their 'consultants' to bring all the money they collected from these applicants to the National Assembly in Ghana-must-go bags and see if they'll be able to produce it. That's when you'll know just how much shit we're in in this country.

In saner climes, there would have been a harvest of high profile resignations since that news broke and the courts would have begun to see some action but not here and certainly not these ones.