graduates including four pregnant women died and many were injured during a
nationwide recruitment test conducted by the Nigeria Immigration Service for
millions of job seekers.
critic and producer, Charles Novia wrote “It’s quite sad to hear that
young Nigerians lost their lives in the Nigerian Immigration Service job
interview. Now, in a nation where there are no jobs for the millions of youths,
the pictures and process of this NIS charade today must be seen as a tinderbox
waiting to explode. And it will explode one day.”
Berating the registration process for the exams, Charles wrote “In the first
place, how can any right thinking institution ask for money from unemployed
youths before their applications can be processed? It seems like a huge and
insensitive scam to me. But do those in power care? This is just the glaring
wickedness we face daily at the hands of our leaders and institutions of state.
All they know is how to milk us dry and suck more blood off our bodies.
He further asked “In this NIS tragedy, can we at least ask ourselves some
salient questions? Why are the young people not thinking of Agriculture? Is the
mindset only for white collar jobs or being NIS officers with the hidden
intention to serve the fatherland by collecting illegal levies at borders and
airports? I could not help shaking my head today as I saw those sweating young
men and women under the sun at the National Stadium.
70% of them could turn their lives around if they found their calling in
Agriculture.We must begin to remove the idea from the young people’s minds that
farming is all about hoes and cutlasses. There are stereotyped images of
farming in their minds and these stupid musicians singing about blings and
material stuff do not help matters. Every young person wants to be rich
overnight, an ambition fuelled by the songs they listen to and the lying music
videos they watch extolling materialism.
accomplished farmer, the movie critic wrote “A friend of mine graduated from
the university ten years ago. For five years, he could not get a job anywhere
in the places where he wished to work. Then he suddenly disappeared off the
radar for years. Last time I saw him, he told me he is now a successful farmer
in Agbor. He went back to his village in frustration years ago and made use of
his family land for farming. He told me that his annual turnover is over forty
million naira with profits more than half that number. He has cars, houses and
employs people in Agbor and is looking at expanding his farming business. This
is a young man of 33! He looked inward and gave the unemployment market the finger!
Why can’t our young people think intelligently? They want ready-made things.
The only ready-made benefits their country would offer them in the face of
unemployment tragedies such as the NIS today are the ready-made tickets to
their graves. More than ten young people took that ticket today. It is
sad. Very sad.” He concluded.
