“People fought and struggled, elbowing the next person as they scrambled to get water to drink. The crowd was so large; we struggled for everything...question papers, drinks to buy and even seats to sit on. People slumped from the intense heat. We waited for over 7 hours for the question papers to arrive and eventually people started to jog around the track of the stadium while others did acrobatics on the field to release the boredom.”
- Eyewitness account from the Nigerian Immigration Recruitment Exercise. March 15th 2014
A few months ago when my father first told me that the Nigerian Immigration Service had open employment vacancies, I was quite uninterested for a few reasons:
1. I hate Uniform jobs. I had barely managed to tolerate primary school and secondary school uniforms. Primary School because I didn’t know any better but secondary school was a test as I always got in trouble with my teachers for wrong dressing. It was always one thing or the other, either I was not tucked in or not buttoned properly or something else but I sure did get in a lot of trouble. I lived for the weekends where I could comfortably don my house wear. The idea of being mandated to wear one attire everyday for weeks on end therefore was supremely NOT enticing to me.
2. I dislike Authority that exerts itself over me: I am not someone who usually gets in trouble with her
superiors but the idea that I would have superiors whose cwords would essentially be the law is not my cup of tea. I would like to be able to state my own opinions clearly on the job and tell my boss” With all due respect, what you’re proposing is not the ideal” and not get suspended for it. I value my opinion and I have watched too many American movies where the commanding officer goes to a junior officer saying, ”And that’s an order” and the J.O then has to march along like a well-trained marionette. Pardon my French, but WTF!
3. Pay to register? Like seriously? For real? I’m sorry, but that’s not best practice. At a time when regulatory bodies are struggling to fight against the poor practice of organizations asking potential employees to pay for registration exercises, a Government Agency then goes and does the same? Not my cup of tea.
4. Millions of people were registering as well. I would go to my bank for a transaction and there would be long queues going round the bank premises of people waiting to buy Scratch cards. I would go to the Internet Cafe and there they would be again, stuffed with people trying to register online. It seemed to me that the whole country was applying and I thought this was absurd. Any probability you have of getting a job from this procedure would be like 1/1000,000 Nigerians. Not good odds, not my cup of tea.
With all of these, I managed to ignore the whole thing, moving on with my dream of Decipher Solutions by organizing workshops and conferences, creating impact and living the life I want.
The Exercise was set for March 14th 2014 and that was when NIS released their criteria for who could participate, stating height requirements for men and women e.t.c.
Eventually, I watched the News reports of how it happened and it was a disaster. Not for NIS, but for Nigerians because NIS took us for a ride and made a killing.
Do the Maths
Form = N1000 per individual entry.
Assuming 1,000,000 Nigerians registered for the exercise (I believe the true count to be closer to 10,000,000)
That makes it 1 Billion Naira!
Way to go NIS!
I was ashamed of Nigerians, frankly. We keep saying the Government is killing us when we have given them the knife and shown them where to stick us.
A young Nigerian, able-bodied degree holder, smart, intelligent and fit, leaves his house on a Saturday to go and stand under the sun for 10 hours approximately along with millions of others around the country because he/she is looking for a job. Hustling for water and getting fleeced when the opportunity was right in front of them to cash in.
Let me analyse a few things, bear with me
1 transparent plastic pail costs N300, 10 containers costs N3000
1 bag of chilled satchet water is N100 and contains 20 individual satchets
(On the average, I can do 20 runs back and forth getting the water to the crowd)
Selling 1 satchet for N20, I make N400 per bag per run.
For an average 20 runs, I make N8000 in a day.
I employ the services of 10 young boys to help me market the water at the venue
I make N80,000
Incurred cost:
Containers = N3000
Water = N20,000
I pay the boys N5 per bag sold = N20,000
Ground Supervisor = N7000
Total = N50,000
My Profit: N30,000
If I sell off the containers at N200 after = N2,000
Total Profit = N32,000
And I sat in my house all day watching Movies and eating salted crackers...
People died, people cried, people left the venue before the exam because they were fed up and exhausted. A lot of people who took part will probably have to spend more money getting treated for dehydration and stress and to what end?
10 MILLION PEOPLE FOR 1500 JOB OPENINGS?
The joke is on us right now. We need to stop sucking up, acting desperately because we do not think we are capable of more. How can an organization release their employment criteria AFTER you have paid for their entry form and applied online? People/ society /government will continue to exploit us because we stand for it.It is past overdue for a mind revolution in Nigeria.
START THINKING! IT ISN’T ILLEGAL YET.
This post is written by Zainab Haruna O.
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