I woke up yesterday (Sunday, August 21, 2016) to read a fictitious report credited to me by Sunday Tribune that I claimed President Muhammadu Buhari does not deserve to be president.
And on the basis of the fiction weaved together by a reporter, he let
loose one of those now-very-common indecorous and rumor-inspired verbal
assault from presidential spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu.
However, today, in one of those uncommon but very professional decisions, Tribune Newspaper
not only recanted on the story but also apologized to me. While I thank
the newspaper for toeing the path of honour, I hope Mallam Garba Shehu
will also be decent enough to admit his error of judgement and tender an
unreserved apology for his falsehood and unwarranted attacks at me.
Notwithstanding, it is important not to
lose sight of the real issue which is about the fate of 2000 young
Nigerians who were employed into the Nigerian Immigration Service, after
a rigorous and transparent process by the last administration, only for
their services to be cynically dispensed with by the current
administration. These are Nigerians from across the country.
Incidentally, I was drawn to their
plight just because in driving past where they had congregated, I saw
among them a friend and Bring Back Our Girls colleague, Hajia Aisha
Yesufu, who, as it would turn out, had taken up their cause. I spoke
with them briefly and I had pleaded with the president to look into
their matter. Fortunately, in correcting the earlier wrong publication,
Tribune has helped to bring out what I said in its story of today as
captured below:
Former minister of education, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, never said President Muhammadu Buhari did not deserve to be president.
Our sister publication, Sunday Tribune,
had attributed the statement to be part of what she said over the
plight of 2,000 immigration service recruits who slept at the entrance
of Aso Villa from Friday till Saturday morning.
Ezekwesili, while
addressing the recruits, had said “I am, therefore, appealing to the
president to immediately ask the military as well as the Nigerian
Immigration Service to do what is right, give justice to all these young
men and women who, on the basis of merit, were appointed into positions
in the NIS.
“I want to say that
if justice is not given to them immediately, I certainly will join them
in sitting here every day until they get their justice. Justice is to be
able to come to table with them.
“Whatever the
challenges are, let it be known, but don’t let anything be done in
secrecy, and let nothing be done with such opaqueness. These young
people are the present of Nigeria, not just the future of Nigeria. If we
don’t treat our young right, we are laying ourselves up for what we
already have troubling us in the country.
“So, I join my voice
with them and I appeal to the President whom they have come to see to
immediately do something about their cause. And I also use this
opportunity to speak to the Federal Government, there have been too many
instances of allegations of illegal recruitment into the public
service.
“If our public
service is dysfunctional and you are worsening it by recruiting people
through the back doors, people who don’t have the talent, skills,
competence, capacity, character to be able to give us good service in
public service, then, we certainly have no plans to be better than we
are.
“So, we should just
from henceforth desist from doing this. And usually, when these illegal
recruitments are done, we sacrifice the best for the worst among us.
Usually, when these illegal recruitments are done, what ends up
happening is that the children of the poorer segment of our society who
struggle to get through their education are left behind, then, that is
the basis of worsening inequality.
“We cannot afford
this and an unequal society is a society laying itself up for implosion
and God forbid that would be the case with our nation. I want to just
applaud all of you for coming out and standing, standing for your cause.
I want to say that I would actually be speaking to a lawyer who will
become your lawyer in this matter, so that, not just would you be on the
streets, but you would have to get legal redress of your situation,
because that’s very important.
“I also applaud the
fact that you have been civil. Today is Saturday, I don’t know what your
plan is, Saturday is not a work day. Sunday is also not a work day. So
people might say they are not at work, that’s why they are not able to
speak to you. Maybe what we would do is have a discussion among
yourselves and perhaps resume your sit-out by wherever you chose to do
that, by the first day of the week. Then whatever you want to say to the
President, I think you should give the opportunity for all your members
to speak to the President. He’s the one you came to see.”
The Tribune hereby tender unreserved apology to Dr Ezekwesili, Aisha Yesufu and the Presidency for the misrepresentation.
Let me again state that the injustice
that the #NigeriaImmigration2000 protesters allege needs immediate
Presidential resolution considering that all other levels of authority
have failed them. If Garba Shehu was not deploying his time and talent
to the wrong priorities, he should have brought the issue of 2000
disaffected young people to the President’s attention when they occupied
the gate of his office last Friday.
I advise him to do so now.
Obiageli (Oby) Ezekwesili is a
former vice president of the World Bank and former minister of education
of Nigeria. She is a co-founder of the Bring Back Our Girls Movement,
originally an All Progressives Congress (APC) political advocacy group
campaigning for the rescue of the 2017 abducted Chibok schoolgirls. She
tweets from @Obyezeks.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of author.
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