- NIS recruitment
- Suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi
The year 2014 started with renewed hopes and dreams in many nations of the world, dear Nigeria inclusive, but today, three months into the year, what can we say about Nigeria?
Nigeria is a theater of absurdities, where lots of intrigues, deviation from the norm, anomalies have now become our standard of living, many are lamenting, full of tears having had shattered dreams, just a few are rejoicing and counting their gains.
It is not an understatement that Nigeria has become a sham. It has lost sight of its social contract. The only factory that seems to work in Nigeria is the corruption industry.
The first quarter of the year 2014 has provided us with a list of events that has heated the polity and provided us with comic relief, though not the one thousand youths ready to make a name but no opportunity who relish, but day-in-day out citizens continue to swallow the bitter, suffering, but yet smiling.
In this piece Naijalog brings you events that have shaped the first quarter of 2014.
The Sack of Stella Oduah…
After months of invincibility, where she wore the toga of untouchable and indispensible the erstwhile Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah-Ogiemwonyi under whose watch more Nigerians were killed in air disasters was finally sacked and gracefully eased out of office.
Earlier many had called for her head, but like a cat with nine lives, and a deft player who has mastered the murky waters of Nigerian politics she had survived scandal after scandal.
From the Iju, Lagos plane crash to the N220 million bullet proof car scandal, she weathered the storm of controversy like a skilled captain.
But despite all the negativities that characterized her reign as the helmsman of Nigeria’s aviation industry, her profile within the Jonathan government began to rise, she was even proudly named a member of the president’s kitchen cabinet, whom favour seekers courted.
She bestrode the colossus, undaunted, sneering at her detractors, making mockery of those who dared look her in the face.
But when many resigned to fate thinking she could never be made a scapegoat, sly JONA with no shoes, decided to do away with her because her larger than life image was probably doing his corporate government’s image no good.
Again, the Commencement of National Confab
The National Conference or National Dialogue as some choose to call it is still ongoing, but the topic that has dominated discourse is the national jaw-jaw live to billing, deal and proffer solutions to national issues that have deferred logical reasoning.
Even before the doors of the conference were thrown open, the national tete-a-tete was already marred in controversy as the decision of the government to pay each of the delegates N12 million for the three months job was viewed with suspicions and as a waste of scarce resources.
Though the delegates to the conference were chosen from different works of life, what we have witnessed thus far have been protests by Muslims over perceived marginalized representations, old senile delegates who have turned to sleeping delegates. Delegates from Adamawa have also threatened to pull out of the Union called Nigeria.
Other issues that have blighted the confab since it started are the haggling over payment of delegates allowance and voting patterns.
Though too early in the day to draw conclusions, pundits and interested Nigerians are already asking, will this be different from other National Conferences?
Suspension of Lamido Sanusi
One thing that has characterized the Jonathan’s administration is its ability to spring up surprises without any inkling, Nigerians woke up to the announcement of the suspension of Governor of Nigeria’s apex bank few months shy of the expiration of his tenure. Sanusi himself was attending a conference on behalf of the nation when he was asked to momentarily step aside.
Though some hold his technical dismissal as good riddance to the small statured economist’s rubbish, because they tend to view him as arrogant and an unrepentant islamist, others especially is supporters believe that he was technical booted out of office for revealing the massive corruption in Nigeria’s petroleum industry.
From whistleblower and righter of wrong, Sanusi Lamido turned hunted. Though the government has a litany of allegations against him to prove that they were right in asking him to step down, the Kano blueblood has replied the government’s query word for word, describing the government’s action as a campaign of calumny.
He has even dragged the government before the courts of the land to in a bid to prove his innocence, but the mudslinging from both parties is yet to stop.
And surely the last has not been heard of the whole saga.
Death of NIS jobseekers
Few Saturdays back, hundreds of hopeful energetic young Nigerians trooped to various centers to partake in recruitments exercise into the Nigerian immigration.
But at the end, a day of hope renewed turned into the day of anguish multiplied, as no fewer than 20 Nigerians lost their lives, as they struggled to partake in a recruitment selection process whose available slots had been shared to the high and mighty in the society even before the exams were written.
Figures from independent sources put those that took part in the recruitment drive at over a million, a claim which the Ministry of Interior which handled the exam dismisses, putting its own figure at 520,000. But one thing all concurred to this, and it was the colossal national disgrace.
Though heads are yet to roll, and the deaths are been downplay, after all the Minister of Interior had initially blamed the death and injuries on the unruly behaviour of an overzealous crowd, though he later recanted accepting all the blame for the shoody nature in which the recruitment drive which raked in hundreds of millions into the hands of government form jobless Nigerians.
Only time will tell when leaders will hearken to the voice of the masses by ensuring that events are better organized and that the lives of productive youths are not toyed with.
In all of these commotion and rancor ongoing, what is the way forward?