Nigerians know how to be self-righteous. We are habitually unctuous. The things we condemn are things we desire in our heart of hearts. We adequately fit the truism that ‘he who is not entitled to a bonus calls it unlawful’. What is Yours Truly driving at? He will explain presently.
During Senator Abiola Ajimobi’s first tenure as the governor of Oyo state, he was around 64 or 65 then, a story was told of how he met a classmate of his at Lagelu Grammar School during one of his tours of the ministries. That man was still in the service of Oyo state as of the time Senator Ajimobi ran into him. One of the qualities Senator Ajimobi has in abundance is his knack for facial memory, no matter how long ago he had seen the faces. Not one to keep sealed lips over such discrepancy, he asked his old friend and classmate the reason he was still in the service after he was over 60years! He told those present that the man was his classmate and is his age mate. This development, perhaps, gave Senator Ajimobi the idea of screening the workers to detect those who had passed the service age of 60 but were still in service.
Many civil servants engage in the corruption of age falsification to remain in service as long as they desire. They do not care that there are youthful graduates who are unemployed and are waiting to replace them after their retirement. The unemployed graduates wait in perpetuity because the civil servants keep adjusting their ages to escape retirement at the statutory period. These civil servants who are adept at age falsification have children who see nothing wrong in what their parents do as long as they benefit from the illegal financial advantage accruing to the parents. These children, who might be computer guru, help their parents in the age falsification misadventure since many of the parents do not have computer literacy. The irony of this is that some parents constitute a stumbling block to the employment of their children since they have blatantly refused to quit the scene when ovation was both loudest and had died down so as to create employment slots for their children to occupy. In the soundness of their stupidity, the conspiring children also do not realise that their parents are the witches sitting on their career pursuits and progress.
Yet, the children of the age falsifiers populate social media, passing uncomplimentary remarks on a president who chooses to appoint his age mates to sensitive positions and condemning the appointees for accepting the positions because they are deemed too old. If this is not hypocritical, one wonders what else is!
President Muhammad Buhari has given the youth a huge opportunity. He has assented to ‘Not too young to run’ bill which has since become an Act. What are the youth doing to avail themselves of the opportunity that the Act offers? Once the youth begin to work their way to executive positions in government, the decision to appoint fellow youths to positions of trust and authorities becomes theirs.
Otherwise, they should come together to lobby the National Assembly to pass into law ‘Too old to be appointed’ bill so that ‘sterile’ youths can begin to take positions being occupied by ‘senile’ elders.
