konknaijaboy | On 17, Mar 2014

The internet was 25 years old last week and its celebration took various forms across the globe. By celebration is meant initiatives which are to remind the world that just as a lot has been done, much more still requires to be done.

Publications on the history of its founding, talk-shops, conferences, youth competitions, symposia, photo-sharing, essays directly pointing at the way forward and many lamenting what societies are capable of doing but still fail to do are some of the things we call celebration. Not glorification of vanity as unprogressive societies engage in when it is time to remember a date at its anniversary.

The amount and account of the horrendous killings, in various forms, (Boko Haram, pipeline explosion, armed robbery, crowd stampede, police extrajudicial killing etc) that go on in Nigeria and which took a new but more dangerous form last week makes it difficult to publish anything without reporting that the nation burns as  the internet grows.

By yesterday (Saturday), the worst happened as more than ten Nigerian youths, trained but jobless, perished in stampedes that arose from their search for a job that ordinarily counts for nothing. All because officials fail to embrace ICT as priority solution.

For want of what to do for a living, a little less than one million Nigerian jobless graduates had applied to slot into the advertised 3,000 vacancies at the Nigerian Immigration Services. Officials at the Immigration Services who had boasted the digitisation of several of their operations invited the applicants to stadia across the country for an employment test. Stadia are not known to have writing desks, so it still bothers the mind why they chose such a venue for an examination.

 

That was an examination that could conveniently be done ‘e’ from the homes of the applicants if those we call officials were listening to all the sermon so far preached for several years (since 1995) on application of ICT. 25 years of the Internet and 19 since the subject was first publicly mentioned in Nigeria, it is a pity, we still keep e-illiterates as heads in public offices.

Although a people get the government they deserve, it is becoming clear that Nigerians, regardless of all their failings, deserve better than this seemingly helpless situation.

We commiserate with the Nation and especially with families that have been sent into bereavement.

Text Source: Cyberschuulnews.com featured image courtesy Sahara Reporters