Our government has no shame!
My dad used to tell a story about the tortoise to illustrate a point about the helplessness of one’s situation when dealing with someone without shame.
At a gathering of men in a community, talk centered around the women in their lives.
One said, “My wife is a gossip, she knows the secrets of every villager.”
Another said, “My wife is very quarrelsome, she never lets me get in a word when we quarrel”
Another said, “my wife can’t cook.”
Another said, “My wife is always going out, never stays indoor…”
Virtually all the men had one thing or another to say about their wives. As they talked, the Tortoise remained silent.
They asked the Tortoise, why he wasn’t saying anything about his wife or did he marry a perfect wife? He answered, “All your wives have faults that can be remedied, my wife is shameless. You see, for someone like that, everything she does is right in her own eyes, no matter how wrong or shameful it is, so you can’t even correct her. I have taken her matter to babalawo (herbalist) he said there’s no remedy for one without shame!”
This is describing the Nigerian government; they are utterly without shame!
A recent report in Punch says the Directorate of the NYSC “…denies advice for corpers to prepare ransom when using high risk roads.”
This is so sad!
Though the directorate has since denied this, the message is never the less still in the pamphlet titled, “Security Awareness and Education Handbook for Corps Members and Staff” handed out to Batch B stream 1 cohort, a few weeks ago!
On this subject matter, I do not blame the (National Youth Service Corp) NYSC Directorate too much, they own only a part of the blame for a failure of the system!
So let’s say the NYSC decided to offer a cautionary note; which is needed from any institution; government or private that has responsibility over any group of persons. You know, let the people in your care know there are security risks at certain places, nothing wrong in letting Corpers know this.
However, let’s ask the NYSC; why send Corp members to high risk areas, knowing the country has no security apparatus to check the menace of kidnappings so rampant especially up north?
-Why deliberately put these corpers at risk and wash your hands clean off them, if anything bad happened to them?
-And why would anyone want to serve a motherland that wants nothing to do with you if anything bad happened to you in the course of that service?
On page 56 of the said pamphlet, it is clear the NYSC is absolving itself of the repercussions that comes from sending youth corp members who may travel through high risk areas.
In a nut shell, cautionary or not, what this means is that any corp member that makes a ‘mistake’ of getting kidnapped, is on his/her own…the NYSC will simply wash its hands off like Pontius Pilate and blame the parents for their lack of spirituality and their inability to produce ransom.
But if we are to castigate the NYSC directorate for having no decorum or no shame, maybe we should first be talking to their fada!
The one who has blames everyone who has challenged him about the security of this country.
The one who refused to name the terrorists sponsors in his government, thus ensuring they continue their evil activities unabated.
The one who pays no heed to the hundreds of thousands of kidnappings going on unchecked in the north, south and every part of the country.
The one who agreed to negotiate with terrorists by rehabilitating them and leaving the victims of their acts, desolate with huge ransoms to pay.
I don’t blame the directorate of the NYSC simply because they are one of the many underfunded agencies of government. They are ill prepared and ill equipped to handle negotiations with terrorists. If bandits successfully attacked the Nigerian Defence Academy, attacked several military institutions and schools and even government institutions, many times over, what is the NYSC to do?
They haven’t even got the funds to pay allowee regularly to corp members, not to talk of shelling out the huge sums of money often demanded as ransom.
Let’s tell ourselves a few home truths, families of kidnapped victims have always been the ones who’ve been paying the ransoms demanded by these bandits. That’s why the likes of Sheikh Gumi will continue to thrive. And even though the NYSC Directorate in a bid to save face has denied the content of the said handbook, the truth is we have a government that just doesn’t care and when it doesn’t care, it has no shame!
But here’s congrats to the recently deployed batch of corp members, may your service year be…safe!