Remembering the stateless people of Nigeria

Published: 1/Jun/2021
Source: The Cable (Abuja)

by Olanrewaju Osho

Zephaniah Dantani was excited to hear the good news of his success at the job interview to recruit young professionals for the Central Bank of Nigeria. He was overwhelmed with emotions as he hurries up to confirm from his electronic mail the good news broken to him a while ago via a text message sent to his phone.

“Waoh! What a sweet end to the harrowing five stage interview process that began twelve weeks ago!” He enthused as he opened his mail. The exercise had commenced with a written test that was used to reduce the two hundred and fifty thousand young job seekers shortlisted to a more manageable three thousand applicants who had two more tests to write before they could qualify for the two technical stages that will determine the successful applicants. Even though he knew he performed very well at the fifth and final stage, he wasn’t quite sure whether he will be one of the final lucky 150 people who would be picked eventually from amongst the 650 finalists. He felt he was in dream land of sort as he hurriedly began to search for the message that was sent to him by CBN’s Human Resources Department.

“There you are!” He shouted ecstatically and opened the mail. The message confirmed the good news in greater details and directed him to click the link to the acceptance form that must be filled and submitted before resuming work in two weeks. As he clicked the link and scrolled up and down to survey the required information in the form, his mien suddenly changed and his excitement fizzled away like the smoke in a dark night.

The transition in his countenance was so deeply troubling that anyone watching nearby would wonder whether he was asked to go bring his dead great grandmother along with him as a condition for resuming work in the new job. Amazingly, that wasn’t the case. The source of his sorrow was the section of the form which required him to select his state of origin from the 36 options provided.

Read further: https://www.thecable.ng/remembering-the-stateless-people-of-nigeria

Themes: Internal Citizenship, Statelessness
Regions: Nigeria
Year: 2021