In Edo State, some survivors and relatives of victims of the March 19 stampedes in which 19 youths died during a botched Nigeria Immigration Service employment test took to the streets to protest the failure of government to provide them promised jobs. A few days later, Abba Moro, the Interior Minister, who organised the shady employment test, defiantly vowed to remain in office despite the global outcry at its gory outcome.
President Goodluck Jonathan and Moro are moving on, encouraged by the habitual failure of Nigerians to demand accountability from their officials. This development has further confirmed the disdain of the Federal Government for ordinary Nigerians. For once, Nigerians should stand for higher principles and let the government know that it cannot waste the lives of 19 youths so needlessly and simply carry on with business as usual.
The entire saga is a betrayal of trust. To recap, in March, having bypassed all laid down procedures − the NIS and even the ministry’s organs − Moro handpicked a hitherto unknown firm to handle the recruitment of 4,556 new officers into the NIS. Amazingly, over 520,000 youths were herded into six centres nationwide where, with no adequate logistics or officials on the ground, stampedes ensued, resulting in the deaths of 19 job seekers and injury to hundreds.
Responding to the national and global outcry that greeted the tragedy, Jonathan, as usual, vacillated. He has so far refused to heed calls to sack Moro and has, instead, since set up diversionary committees. The National Assembly has joined in the charade. The Senate Committee on Interior held public hearings where Moro’s culpability was laid bare. All the key officials, the board of the NIS and the Comptroller-General of Immigration confirmed that Moro indeed circumvented all the laid down procedures to stage the dubious test. But rather than table the report before the full house to take a decision, the complicit Senate leadership has contrived since May to keep it in abeyance. Jonathan too has not acted on the report of a panel he set up to look into the tragedy.
The chicanery is made worse by the alleged failure to fulfil government’s solemn job promises to the families of the victims and the injured survivors. In a widely publicised pronouncement, Jonathan had directed that three job slots be given to each of the families of those who died, while those who suffered injuries be offered employment. Some who claim to be survivors or relatives of the dead now say they have yet to be given the promised jobs. A presidential pledge should be sacred. Moro’s excuse that the ministry is waiting for the panel investigating the tragedy to present its report is disingenuous. The directive never tied the job pledge to the panel’s report. This is impunity at work once again.
We are particularly worried by the defiance of Moro, who, in an interview with a television station, sounded rather triumphal. “The point at which we are now is not about resignation. That time has gone,” he declared with arrogant finality. His assertion that he would remain in office “to sort out the problem” is anachronistic and self-serving. It depicts someone without honour. In Japan where public officials still have honour, two female ministers resigned on Monday after being accused of misusing political funds.
Last year, China’s president sacked and prosecuted the deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission for using his position to benefit five companies. Before then, a minister had been sacked after a high speed train derailed, killing many people. South Korea’s Prime Minister, Chung Hong-won, did not claim, as he could justifiably have done, that he had no hand in the ferry disaster that killed over 300 persons, before resigning in April after a public outcry over the government’s subsequent poor rescue efforts. The United States Congress knew that Julia Pierson was not personally to blame for the breach of security at the White House, but insisted on her resignation as Director of the US Secret Service, which she honourably did.
Successful societies are run on the basis of accepted minimum standards of public conduct. No law demanded the resignation of Liam Fox as the United Kingdom’s Defence Secretary in 2011 after he allowed his friend to sit in on official business, but he did so to preserve the prestige of public office and in deference to the sensibilities of the electorate.
But Nigeria’s politicians have no regard for the citizens and have failed to invest public office here with an aura of respectability, being enamoured only of the spoils of office. Jonathan has failed the litmus test of leadership and concern for the vulnerable by refusing to sack Moro and moving on without ensuring that the directives to employ some of the survivors and members of the victims’ families are promptly carried out.
But this is what happens to a docile population that refuses to defend its rights and hold public office holders to account. Those scammed should demand an accounting, opt for individual or class action law suits and press for closure through peaceful legal avenues. Public-spirited lawyers, activists and civil society groups should assist these hapless Nigerians and keep this issue alive in the public domain until Jonathan and Moro do the right thing.
