Does anyone still remember how recruitment officials from the
Nigerian Army randomly visited primary and junior secondary schools in the
early 1980's in search of eligible Nigerian youth to be lured
into enlisting to serve Nigeria in the Nigerian Army? I, for one,
will not forget in a hurry how often we were pestered then while in final
stages of our primary school by large teams of military officers neatly and
smartly dressed in their beautiful, powerfully starched military
fatigues/uniforms, to be enlisted into the Nigerian Army even as most of us
looked forward to seeing these agile and strong macho-looking young Nigerian
soldiers to visit our schools in their usual search for persons burning with
patriotic zeal and endowed with the strength of character, discipline, youthful
zeal to learn and good health to be enlisted into the Nigerian military without
any further pre-condition.
Sadly, I am told by most
younger persons in primary and post-primary schools today that they have
never set their eyes on these 'august' visitors from the Nigerian military
who were frequent guests of our primary and post-primary educational faculties
in the early 1980's.
Unlike then, what we now have is the invasion of the recruitment
exercise into the Nigerian military of some modern day entrepreneurs who
successfully hood-winked the hierarchies of the various military establishments
through the political administrators, that the institution of the Nigerian
military can reap bountiful financial benefits by introducing the sale of
scratch cards to prospective recruits into the different segments of the
Nigerian military even as the management consultants would also smile home
with their handsome financial gains from this commercially profit -driven idea
that is totally bereft of altruism or patriotic love of Nigeria.
Unfortunately, the Nigerian military institutions and their
Para-military sister agencies like the Nigerian Police Force; the
Nigerian Customs; the Nigerian Immigration Service and the Nigerian Civil
Defense Corp, not forgetting the National Drugs Law enforcement Agency [NDLEA]
are now feasting on the millions of jobless Nigerian youth wandering around the
streets searching for the scarcely available white collar jobs, by selling
recruitment scratch cards to willing buyers who usually are far more than the
number of required or expected recruits to fill up the vacant positions in
those establishments.
So what we now know as purchase of scratch cards by
prospective recruits in our contemporary Nigerian military institutions has
created a situation of bumper harvest of profits by these military agencies who
now smile to the banks with multi-million Naira profits from the marketing
of recruitment scratch cards to prospective recruits most of whom are now
made up of angry young Nigerian university and secondary school leavers who
have wandered in the weather beating state capitals of Nigerian cities
and the twin commercial and political capitals of Nigeria namely Lagos and
Abuja without finding any employment with living wages. If I am not
mistaken, this commercialized recruitment into the military institutions became
rampant during the government of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired General of
the Nigerian Army who was generously recruited into the then Nigerian Army
without any commercial pre-conditions as are the case unfortunately these
contemporary times.
My take is that this marketing of scratch cards to all manner of
characters most of whom are shady and may have criminal past was the
single contributing factor to the speedy collapse of regimentary discipline in
the Nigerian Military making it impossible for the Nigerian Army that is
primarily set up by law to defend the territorial integrity of
Nigeria to be taken by surprise by the emergence of different classes of armed
terrorists who have invaded our territory through the many porous international
borders and have unleashed devastating violence on the civil populace and
selected government institutions and operatives of the Nigerian security.
Herein lies also the beginning of the contagious
bribe-for-employment racketeering that has taken over the public service
sector of the Nigerian society because if Government has institutionalized the commercialization
of the recruitment into the most strategic national institution like the
military, those who now pay bribe to secure employment opportunities in the
Nigerian public service have it at the back of their minds that it is lawful to
give bribe to secure employment since even the Government openly auctions
recruitment into the military and Para-military institutions. So don't blame
the criminal phenomenon of paying bribe for employment by Nigerian youth on the
prospective job seekers but rather locate the blame squarely on the door steps
of the Nigerian government which actively introduced the marketing of
recruitment scratch cards to such sacred national anti-crime and law and order
institutions like the Nigerian Army and other security establishments including
the National Drugs Law enforcement Agency that ought to fight drug barons from
infiltrating our nation and flooding it with their deadly merchandise of hard
drugs. Little wonder that Nigeria has become an international transit for hard drugs
even with all the media propaganda by the anti-hard drugs agency to the
contrary.
Who says that it is not possible that drug barons would have
cashed in on the sale of scratch cards for recruitment to flood the agency with
their foot soldiers since raising money to procure the scratch cards wont pose
much problem unlike other genuine Nigerian graduates who would have to scratch
their sun-beaten heads to raise the N2,000 usually charged for the cards? Not
long ago, some members of the Federal House of Representatives debated on the
floor of the so-called green chamber and stoutly opposed the charging of high
fees for purchase of scratch cards for recruitment into these military
institutions in Nigeria because according to those who spoke mostly from Northern
Nigeria, their constituents are not only too poor but not technologically savvy
to understand the intricacies of how to fill up the forms making use of the
computers in places that mostly do not have electricity power supply much of
the time. But the Federal House of Representatives allowed the commercial
agenda of the innovators who introduced the scratch cards to override national
security and national pride. Big shame!
We are dealing with a very dangerous phenomenon whereby the
national security may have been endangered. Was it not the current President
who stated that the military has being infiltrated by agents of the dreaded
armed Islamic terrorists-Boko Haram? Again, was the alleged mastermind of the
dastardly criminal bombing of the Catholic Church in Madala, near Suleja, Niger
State, Mr. Kabiru Sokoto not apprehended in the Borno state Governor's lodge in
Abuja whereby he was allegedly conveyed by a serving Air force middle level
officer who was reintegrated into the military after some unserious
questioning? Was Obasanjo as the then President of Nigeria not quoted in the
media to have alleged that armed robbers have now been recruited into the
Nigerian Police Force just as this allegation emerged against the backdrop of
sale of scratch cards to prospective recruits?
On this disturbing case of buying and selling of scratch cards for
enlistment into the Nigerian military, I have asked questions and told by not
less than a dozen United States based Nigerians who should know that
recruitment into the United States marine and the United States of America's
Army does not go with such commercial pre-conditions like the commercial sale
of scratch cards to prospective recruits. I was told that the authorities in
The United States are much more concerned about recruiting persons with clean
record and who have met the educational, health and physical fitness test. And
if you doubt me all you need to do is to browse from Google to search if other
jurisdictions commercially markets scratch cards for recruitment into their
military institutions and the fastest answer that will confront you is that
Nigerian military sale scratch cards for recruitment.
This practice, according to what I also found out from my inquiry
for over two months, is completely alien to most developed economies who
cherish their national security and would do everything under the sun to
maintain and preserve their time-tested and time-honored values of love of
their nation above anything else.
For instance, http://www.goarmy.com/ is of the considered
opinion that in the area of health qualification to join the United States
Army, the potential recruit only has to be of overall good physical condition
and is required by statute to pass a physical prior to enlistment as well as
pass an initial strength test prior to being shipped to basic training just as
it stated that educationally, the United States Army accepts enlistments from
both those with high school diploma and those with the GED. There was no
mention of purchase of recruitment scratch card before being enlisted into the
United States Army.
Well, I stand to be corrected, if indeed Nigerian government
officials borrowed this unusual practice of commercially offering for
sale recruitment into the Nigerian Military from some foreign
jurisdictions, then they have committed the unintended blunder of unleashing
the demons of 'anything- is- possible' in these institutions even as the
unintended consequences of young graduates now buying their ways to gain
recruitment into the Nigerian public and civil service logically flowed
from this evil practice that is obtainable in the recruitment exercise into the
Nigerian military.
It would be recalled intellectually that Mr. George Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel, the German Philosopher of the 19th century espoused one
of his finest theories which is known as the Hegel's Dialectics which I want to
fall back on to explain the criminal nexus between the commercialization of
recruitment into the Nigerian military with the incessant and disturbing
criminal phenomenon of bribes-for-employment that has gained notoriety now in
Nigeria.
Hegel believed that ideas evolved through a Dialectical process
meaning that a concept gives rise to its opposite, and as a result of this
conflict, a third view, the synthesis, arises. For him, the Synthesis is at a
higher level of truth than the first two views. Following the Hegelian format,
I will submit that the introduction of the marketing of recruitment scratch
cards into Nigerian Military gave rise to the antithesis of
bribe-for-employment and now the synthesis is the genuine clamor for this evil
practice to be terminated so that we can once more sanitize the recruitment
mechanism into all of our public and civil service institutions in Nigeria and
by so doing institutionalize the virtues of merit, competence and professional
excellence.
The other repugnant pollutant observed in the recruitment into the
various category of employment slots in Nigeria in both the private and public
sector is what is referred as 'man-know-man' or favoritism which is
in wide application all across Nigeria that has culminated in the evil
phenomenon whereby the young Nigerian graduates searching for employment would
have to obtain a reference letter from a prominent political office holder like
ministers and national legislators and worst of all from the parents of the
President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The sacrilege of alleged involvement of the family members of the
number one Nigerian citizen in fixing employment slots for their choice
candidates came to light when Mrs. Rose Uzomma, the first Nigerian Woman to
head the Nigeria Immigration Service was sacked for alleged job racketeering
and the media reported the allegation that the last recruitment she carried out
was largely manipulated allegedly by the supervisory minister of
Interior Mr. Moro Aba and the members of the First family who were alleged to
have successfully secured juicy slots for their candidates. She became the
sacrificial lamb because she was expected to have done everything within
her power to maintain the code of silence synonymous with such high level job
racketeering involving high profile political office holders and sadly, she
gave way without crying 'blue murder' because she got the soft landing of being
retired with full entitlements. Her exit ended that allegations even as nothing
seems to have changed.
It is a notorious fact that appointments into public and top civil
service slots in Nigeria are decided not just by Federal Character but
determined and shared during nocturnal meetings by top political office holders
like the Senate President, the Speaker and his Deputy and not forgetting the
powerful Deputy Senate President and the ministers who call the shots in
their areas of jurisdiction.
On good authority I was informed that a certain minister
successfully secured juicy appointment for his new mistress who
recently did her compulsory one year national service [NYSC] in
the Nigerian Copyright Commission [NCC] and this little but beautiful damsel
with little or no experience was posted to, I am told, strategic and
juicy position. Then tell me how this kind of important agency of
government can perform her statutory role properly and rid the Nigerian markets
of pirated materials of creative and talented entrepreneurs who are at the
receiving end of the dare devil activities of these commercial demons
called pirates? The Public Complaint Commission which is solely supervised
[oddly] by the National Assembly is filled up with commissioners that are
recommended by powerful leaders of the National Assembly not minding if these characters
qualify or not. How can this corruption infested Public Complaint Commission be
competent and ready to handle the complaints from the Nigerian public when
their position constitute serious complaint and a source of public outrage?
So I laughed to high heavens when newspapers reported that the
current Senate of the Federal Republic was probing the widespread
bribe-for-employment racketeering because the Senators are the single largest
cause of the pollution of the recruitment process into the Federal Civil
service because they misuse their oversight function provided for under the
constitution to seek for favors from the Director Generals of agencies and ministers
holding offices in the different ministries who usually come to them at the
National Assembly to pad up their annual budgets and for sundry other public
sessions usually staged to confuse undiscerning Nigerians that they are working
for Nigerians. Deception has being elevated to a beautiful art form by the
political office holders Nigeria.
Recently, President Jonathan released the list of his nominees to
some very sensitive slots in the nations tertiary institutions and health
faculties and one of such persons appointed was the former Speaker of the
Federal House of Representatives Mr. Salisu Buhari from Kano state who was
indicted, prosecuted and jailed and later pardoned for certificate forgery.
Jonathan who has a doctorate degree from University of Port Harcourt appointed
this same man to head the governing council of a Federal University and his
spokesman who has a doctorate degree in performance arts defended this obscene
appointment.
Why then are we wondering how and when the rain started to beat
us[ apologies to Chinua Achebe]?
We are the general cause of the problem of bribe-for-employment
and the earlier we collectively decide to kill it then we need to take some
bold steps including phasing out this mad rush to make profit from unsuspecting
young Nigerians in the guise of recruiting them into the Nigerian military and
the emphasis we lay on paper qualification rather than practical experience
hasn't helped this matter either.
+Emmanuel Onwubiko; Head; Human Rights Writers' Association of
Nigeria; blogs @www.huriwa.blogspot.com; http://www.huriwa.org/.
20/5/2013
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