Dated 15/03/2015
I was sceptical when I got an SMS on Thursday from
Immigrations saying that all who applied for the immigrations job should come
for the exams today, without any form of shortlisting.
I packed a school bag and headed to find a moderately
priced hotel in the city closest to the venue of the exam to enable me get
there early since the time for the exam was 7am. I did some reading on Friday
night and I felt good about my chances. I woke up at 5am, dressed up in my blue
jean and t-shirt and headed to the stadium. From Berger junction I started
seeing young people dressed in white shirts, shorts and tennis shoes walking
briskly to the stadium. As I got to the stadium I saw a large number of people;
on the left side of the road were young men and women changing out of their day
wear into white shirts and shorts that seemed to be the required apparel to
engage in the drills (the first part of the aptitude test). I went to a corner,
changed out of my jean and donned the white outfit. I felt incredibly stupid
wearing that ridiculous outfit yet I was determined to make giant strides in my
efforts to secure a better job.
The officials at the gate didn’t seem to know which entrance was going to be used and as 7am was fast approaching, people started using make shift entrances that ran along the path of bushes and thick shrubs. I got injured on my left leg trying to carry my 40 pound school bag on my back while running along the shrubs at the same time. We were told to line up in long queues where our documents would be validated before we gained entrance into the main bowl of the stadium but were left to our own devices for more than 40minutes without any instructions. After waiting for some time I sat down with a couple of young men going over some likely questions that could be asked when suddenly we saw people running towards the ticketing gate just before the entrance to the main bowl. This was where most of the problems ensured. There were no officials at the gate to let us in; neither did they come by to tell us how long we were going to stand in such a huge crowd before anything was done. In a matter of minutes I was surrounded on all sides by a mass of body. I couldn’t see what was behind me only in front of me. We noticed that only those at the first gate were going through and in a moment of panic a young man scaled the ticketing gate. Suddenly people started scaling the ticketing fence and a huge stampede begun, the greatest I have ever seen or been involved in my entire life. It was pure chaos… Someone was pressing me on the left side into the metal bars while ten bodies were crowding in on me. My friend Edet scaled the fence and screamed for me to do the same. I wanted to turn back but I couldn’t because there were so many bodies trying to get to the fence at the same time. The sweat from the brown shirt of the man on my left was rubbing my face, another person on my right was raising his armpits right into my nose trying to get a grip on the handle bars meanwhile someone at my back with a very hairy leg was trying to use my neck as a ladder to scale the fence. In the midst of all this the sun was piercing us with its heat and within a matter of seconds there was no air. Edet kept screaming at me
The officials at the gate didn’t seem to know which entrance was going to be used and as 7am was fast approaching, people started using make shift entrances that ran along the path of bushes and thick shrubs. I got injured on my left leg trying to carry my 40 pound school bag on my back while running along the shrubs at the same time. We were told to line up in long queues where our documents would be validated before we gained entrance into the main bowl of the stadium but were left to our own devices for more than 40minutes without any instructions. After waiting for some time I sat down with a couple of young men going over some likely questions that could be asked when suddenly we saw people running towards the ticketing gate just before the entrance to the main bowl. This was where most of the problems ensured. There were no officials at the gate to let us in; neither did they come by to tell us how long we were going to stand in such a huge crowd before anything was done. In a matter of minutes I was surrounded on all sides by a mass of body. I couldn’t see what was behind me only in front of me. We noticed that only those at the first gate were going through and in a moment of panic a young man scaled the ticketing gate. Suddenly people started scaling the ticketing fence and a huge stampede begun, the greatest I have ever seen or been involved in my entire life. It was pure chaos… Someone was pressing me on the left side into the metal bars while ten bodies were crowding in on me. My friend Edet scaled the fence and screamed for me to do the same. I wanted to turn back but I couldn’t because there were so many bodies trying to get to the fence at the same time. The sweat from the brown shirt of the man on my left was rubbing my face, another person on my right was raising his armpits right into my nose trying to get a grip on the handle bars meanwhile someone at my back with a very hairy leg was trying to use my neck as a ladder to scale the fence. In the midst of all this the sun was piercing us with its heat and within a matter of seconds there was no air. Edet kept screaming at me
Chima Jump!
I can’t! What about my school bag, it’s too heavy
Drop it on the floor and jump or someone is going to
step on you!
I had only one option…to scale the fence. A young lady
collected my credentials on the other side while I dropped my 40 pound bag on
the ground. I noticed that my school bag was opened but I didn’t think anything
of it as I figured it must have happened in the stampede. To my far left there
was a woman with a three month old baby, another pregnant wife and some obese
women all of whom were caught up in the stampede and simply didn’t have the
gusto to climb the fence. I jumped to the other side with my heart beating in
my mouth, surprised that I had it in me to carry out such a risk move yet
satisfied that I wasn’t going to be one of those left behind. Some people got
stepped on, others were thrown down from the top of the gate. I saw a woman
hang on the rails because her shirt was caught in it while another man twisted
his ankles while trying to step on the bars. Edet later came inside to tell me
that some people died in the stampede and others had sustained severe injuries.
I ran with Edet to the first floor at Gate 12 to get a
good seat so that we would be among the first group of people to get the
question papers since I already heard that the sheer mass of people was going
to be too many for the immigration officials to conduct any sort of drill
exercises. We finally secured a seat and I was so happy, a smirk made its way
to my face when I thought about what had just survived outside.
I finally settled in to do some revision on what I had read the previous night. To my dismay my iPad was missing from school bag. Panic set in again and I immediately rushed to the gates to find out if anyone had picked it up. It suddenly hit me; someone had opened my bag in the chaos and taken my iPad. It really was genius...the fact that anyone could be so composed in such a melee to think of anything other than survival. I was sad, angry and immediately dismayed. I really loved that ipad, it was my e-reader and companion and I was very attached to it. I went back to the main bowl and when Edet saw my face he knew immediately that I didn’t find it. I settled in ready to write the exam so I could go home and wallow. That was not to be the case… we sat there from 9am till 3:30pm before the exams begun.
No one told us anything, no information was passed… the immigration officials simply gathered over 150,000 young unemployed/underemployed Nigerians living in the FCT and treated us like animals.
I finally settled in to do some revision on what I had read the previous night. To my dismay my iPad was missing from school bag. Panic set in again and I immediately rushed to the gates to find out if anyone had picked it up. It suddenly hit me; someone had opened my bag in the chaos and taken my iPad. It really was genius...the fact that anyone could be so composed in such a melee to think of anything other than survival. I was sad, angry and immediately dismayed. I really loved that ipad, it was my e-reader and companion and I was very attached to it. I went back to the main bowl and when Edet saw my face he knew immediately that I didn’t find it. I settled in ready to write the exam so I could go home and wallow. That was not to be the case… we sat there from 9am till 3:30pm before the exams begun.
No one told us anything, no information was passed… the immigration officials simply gathered over 150,000 young unemployed/underemployed Nigerians living in the FCT and treated us like animals.
It was terrible; I saw so many of my classmate from
the university there…people I had served with during the NYSC. We were mashed
together like sardine in a single place and treated like insignificant beings
that deserved no human dignity. I sat down for 6 hours straight with my 40
pound school bag on my lap the entire time. My buttocks were on fire, my left
leg hurting from the early morning bruise and my laps in terrible pain from
bearing the weight of my bag. Some people entertained themselves on the
football pitch. It was like a disturbing circus of hopeless humans trying to
find positives from the depressing situation we found ourselves in. Some people
were climbing hurdles, others were dancing, some were running round the field,
others had used pure water sachets to make a ball and were kicking it around in
the sun while some just tried to entertain the patient and hopeful crowd with
their clumsiness. I couldn’t summon laughter in me because I didn’t understand
how anyone could laugh in the face of such distress.
We were just statistics, the number that would be used to say that they had done the right thing by carrying out the required exams. The exam itself when it began was a sham! It only had analytic reasoning and mathematics. There was no invigilation neither did the questions asked represent the ability to test qualities a prospective immigration officer should possess. It was a day from hell, a complete waste that I regret with every fibre of my being. I have never been more ashamed in my life to call myself a Nigerian or feel the desire to claw the essence of my nationality from my soul. The nation had failed us. They treated us like things that they didn’t care for and removed from me any little hope I had of things ever getting better. I lost a part of myself in that stampede today and I feel that I have come full circle in the struggle to get a job in a country where there is simply none.
We were just statistics, the number that would be used to say that they had done the right thing by carrying out the required exams. The exam itself when it began was a sham! It only had analytic reasoning and mathematics. There was no invigilation neither did the questions asked represent the ability to test qualities a prospective immigration officer should possess. It was a day from hell, a complete waste that I regret with every fibre of my being. I have never been more ashamed in my life to call myself a Nigerian or feel the desire to claw the essence of my nationality from my soul. The nation had failed us. They treated us like things that they didn’t care for and removed from me any little hope I had of things ever getting better. I lost a part of myself in that stampede today and I feel that I have come full circle in the struggle to get a job in a country where there is simply none.
Before we got to the venue we all knew at the back of our minds that the chances of any of us getting the job was probably 10%, yet we held on to that hope, fed on it while we sweated pain from our skins trying to write an exam we weren’t even sure was going to matter in the end. We used that little grain of hope to nourish ourselves as we sat in the sun for 6 hours waiting to know what was going to happen next and we prayed with that hope when more than 70,000 university graduates dropped their question/answer sheet as we made our way out of the venue shattered and drained of physical strength yet hoping that the valiant efforts of the day would not be in vain. We looked up to the heavens in faith as we feared to wonder if there was anyone who was going to further our cause or are we doomed to remain the statistics. At least I learned a lesson today; morality and protocol doesn’t make you top dog in Nigeria, its connections and money that moves mountains.
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