SHEM’S SHOW OF SHAME: A WAKE-UP CALL

By

Clement Adebayo Oloyede

If he had accepted that there is job racketeering in Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corp (NSCDC) like every other sector, maybe the situation would have died down. Maybe if he had accepted the shame and announce that he did not know his organisation’s website, the matter wouldn’t have attracted this much attention. But as providence will have it the decadence in Nigeria's civil service has been revealed to broad day light by the unpardonable performance of Mr. Obafaiye Shem.

Channels TV website posted that "The Lagos State Commandant of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corp (NSCDC) Obafaiye Shem has said that he has never visited his organisation’s website. Speaking as a guest on Channels Television’s breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, Mr. Shem said the website opened by impostors to defraud unsuspecting job seekers would be automatically closed. Asked to mention the NSCDC’s web address, Mr Shem said ‘I cannot categorically tell you one now.’ Probed further to name the organisation’s website, the commandant said the address is: www.nscdc."

Everyone that has watched the video clip of the interview will find out that Channels TV website actually painted a more modest picture of what Mr. Shem said. In that interview, Mr. Shem inaugurated the now trending topics on Twitter (#MyOgaAtTheTop & #Dazall). To quote him right, he said “I don’t want to tell you one (website) now and my oga at the top will say another thing”. He actually gave the website as ww.nscdc (he cleared his throat as if expecting the interview to continue). When the presenter repeated the website with astonishment, he concluded the website address with ‘.dazall’ as the domain!

His confidence acts as the harbinger to his incompetence. That a top officer in NSCDC will not know the website of the organization he's been working with for years, is a culpable act on its own. But the palpable manner at which that ignorance was delivered will never be forgotten in the history of this country; at least not in the nearest future.

His Facebook page gave him away the more. He (according to the information on his page) is an alumnus of Unilag. People have been asking since the proliferation of the video clip on the internet how on earth he graduated and made it to the post of Commandant.

The manner at which SNSs especially Twitter users have helped to publicize this inglorious show of shame is a sign that the teeming youth are still much concerned about what happens in the country.

"The man sat confidently though not relaxed on a beautiful chair in the studio of channels TV. The average viewer may easily predict, from his countenance that the man is trying to answer a 2million naira question on Frank Edoho’s 'Who wants to be a Millionaire.' He looks nervous but authoritative like every uniform man in Nigeria." That was how Mr. Shem was summed up on a friend's blog.

Unconfirmed web sources have it that Mr Obafaiye Shem, the Lagos Commandant of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corp (NSCDC), (aka My Oga At the Top) has been Suspended by the Internal Affair Ministry. Critics already believe that this move is just a ploy from the government to tell the citizens that they are ‘on top’ of the situation. Citizens are waiting to be proven wrong.

The task before the government now is to purge the decadence in our civil service, maybe the Murtala Muhammad's style of purging should be recalled or maybe another style. The most important and daunting onus now is that the government should not allow this matter to die down like a joke it has become, but should see the reaction that trailed it as a harbinger for a revolution among the youth.

As it stands now, revolution of the mind is ongoing among the technology-conscious youths. I hope the government will correct all these anomalies before the embryonic revolution will metamorphose into 'real' revolution. The government might keep in mind the words of Malcolm X in his 'Ballot or Bullet' speech that “Revolution overturns system ... there is no 'bloodless' revolution. It does not exist anywhere in the world, not even in Hollywood!” We are watching!!!