Jul 9, 2021

Businessday Ng - And she pierced the baby’s eyes Share There are many decisions in life that are taken in the best interest of an organisation or in the best interest of a person. For those who are honest and those who are discerning, the reasons for those decisions are mutually understood. For mischief-makers, it will be misrepresented or completely turned around to make the decision maker a bad or mean spirited person. In a nation full of very gullible people to include learned people like professors and their intellectual ilk, you hear and see the most bizarre tales, completely unsubstantiated. Then it is fully propagated online by a man or woman you expect to know better. And so one fine morning the multi-talented Yinka Davies sent me a message she had received on her Instagram pretty much putting me away. No one is a saint but you own up to only things that are true. This is how I live my life. I knew the character who was trying to discredit me online. Never met him but knew him by reputation. He had brought some dodgy content forward when I was Executive Director programmes at the Nigerian Television Authority and I had subjected it to our standard content check. He was unhappy. I told him those were the rules. I then insisted that the content since we cannot really ascertain it could not go live. He hit the roof and started mudslinging and drawing up all those he knew to speak with me. I told him any slip from his guests will get us sanctioned. Record it, I said. At least we can check that there are no misdemeanours. By now he had turned into a lemon. Faulty hiring has ruined our nation. People who know next to nothing are in offices running organisations and age-old institutions down Four years after my retirement from active public service he tries to throw me under a bus. I had discretionary powers but only where the content is not sensitive. All we asked him to do was to keep the rules. Nigerians hate rules. That is why we are where we are today. Breaking rules has become a national past-time. Impunity, corruption, sheer national stupidity. It is sad. So Sokoto came to the fore last week because a nurse had pierced the eyes of a newborn to avenge the allocation of a carryover the mother meted to her while she was in school. Merde! A carryover? Should I be worried? I teach at a university currently and sometimes a carryover is given to a student who did not do well. In the past we accepted our results with grace and tried to improve. Today there is sorting where a lecturer allocates good marks to a failure because of some inducement. From time to time parents call me. I tell them sorry, you are not my student. If a student does not do well or is not paying attention or does not even come to class, a carryover will be his or her lot or even a withdrawal. Some parents encourage their children to be foolish. So if a person has a carryover, the best way is to attack the teacher’s family or the teacher themselves? I don’t get it. There are internal mechanisms for complaints available in every university. How did we get here? Why are we having this conversation? A nurse given the responsibility to care for patients pierces the eyes of a newborn. Gosh! My mum was a nurse. I know the 411 of being a nurse. How did this nurse get hired? What checks were in place? Or was the employment based on man-know-man? A typical way in which Nigerians hire these days. Faulty hiring has ruined our nation. People who know next to nothing are in offices running organisations and age-old institutions down. But more disturbing news is coming out of Sokoto. The mother of the baby says she is a non-academic staff so could not have taught the nurse not to talk of carryover. Stop! Listen! The hospital hired a nurse with a mental health issue to look after sick people? Let us pray. Share Subscribe