by Esenwa patrick

According to Howard Zinn, “there is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people”.

Exactly one year ago, 15th of March, 2014, 19 innocent Nigerians in their quest for a better life and to leave behind the burden of unemployment lost their lives in a mass murder tagged the Nigeria Immigration Service recruitment. One year after, majority of us, especially the government, have moved on and acting like such atrocity never happened. It is business as usual.

A lot of Nigerians have an undying love for this country. However, we detest our failing system and continuous government ineptitude across board. Sometimes, I get sad about developments in this nation.

Too many things have been said about the NIS murder, we can not speak enough of how the exercise was poorly conducted (it has been the worst so far), how applicants were made to pay a fee for recruitment forms, how close to a million people were shortlisted for only 4556 jobs. I could go on and on about these Ill-fated exercise, but then again the details is an open secret. I will be more concerned about the aftermath.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly and viciously. I write this for the love of my country – to see a better and greater Nigeria.

This is a season of so much politicking and every actor in the game is trying every possible means to garner political points and sway voters their way. This piece is not for that, this is a call to awaken the psyche of a normal individual and a proper thinking nation. We, as a nation, should be able to compete and be at par with the developed nations of the world.

For all who do not know, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) is a federal government parastatal, extracted from the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) in 1958, which has a Comptroller General has the Head, who is closely supervised by the Ministry of Interior.

The NIS recruitment was conducted and supervised by the Ministry of interior, which has Comrade Abba Moro as the Minister in charge. After the artificial tragic incident, if truly we are a serious country, I expected the President of the country to take drastic measures against the major overseers of this obvious manslaughter. It is either they lose their jobs by either resigning or getting sacked; but then again, this is Nigeria. None of that happened.

We are in a country where individuals see a political office as a means to accumulate funds and gain influences across board. In a sane clime, the honorable minister would have done the honorable act, which is to resign; thereby, creating an avenue for an unbiased probe to take place, so as to bring those culpable to justice and ensure nothing of such repeats itself anymore. One year after, he is still the minister occupying the same office.

I remember, immediately after the tragedy, the professional blame game instantly came into play. I remember him blaming the devil, ”while we were making our plans, the devil was also planning”. He further went on to blame the applicants who came for the exercise on the said day. According to the Minister, they were to blame for scaling the fence and forcing their way into the test venues. He forgot to realise that Leadership is about taking responsibilities and not making excuses.

The Comptroller General, David Pannang, also traded with the blame game. He accused the Minister of not ”carrying him along”. In the midst of the outrage over the tragedy, the senate requested that an extensive probe should be carried out. I remember a friend saying it was a mere publicity stunt with temporal background noise to hype every public expectation. True to his word, it was just a mere talk by the President of the Senate. One year after, no one has been brought to justice for the killing of these Nigerians.

Abraham Lincoln, in one of his famous speeches, declared that; you cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. I’m still surprised that no one has been brought to book. I’m surprised that Comrade Abba Moro is still in charge one year later. It is little and of no surprise to me that the compensation and jobs promised to the family of the victims has suddenly become a political tool.

Until we begin to take responsibility and have an obligation for the life of every Nigerian, rich or poor, North or South, Christian or Muslim; then, we can start thinking to shape and design this country to the masterpiece we all desire. There is no hiding from the obvious that we have had a horrid and hideous past, but we can make things better for the future by starting to take responsibility.

I conclude by saying, we are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility of our future.

Nigeria will be great again.

This writer tweets from @PatrickEsenwa

Kolapo Olapoju