The biggest story in Nigeria you haven’t read
You may not have heard. And that does not mean you have been living under a rock. It just means your source of news has let you down.
Last Friday, hundreds of Nigerian youths marched to Aso Rock Villa to show their grievances about the way they were being treated by the Nigeria Immigration Service.
For 29 hours, the protesting youth camped at the entrance to the villa, spending all of Friday night and Saturday morning out in the cold.
No one from the presidency attended to them.
“Not even a cleaner was sent to at least make us feel we’re Nigerians,” @Emlix01 told our correspondent.
“I’ll have to say it’s appalling,” she added.
Actually, appalling is an understatement.
Which president in the whole world would leave citizens of his own country out in the cold?
These young people were illegally “dispersed” under the guise of a two week break which followed months of a rigorous recruitment and training exercise.
Earlier that week, the NIS had outlined the process the recruits would have to undergo to be re-engaged. On top of the four-step process is the major bone of contention.
You can actually find the whole gist here.
However, no matter what the case was it was the height of irresponsibility on the part of President Muhammadu Buhari and his numerous aides to leave Nigerian youths out in the cold.
They wanted to share their grievances with their president, and that is a constitutional right even our constitution, in spite of all its shortcomings, provides for.
But their president who, during electioneering campaigns, went to great lengths to convince Nigerians he had the tenderness of a father, left them to fend for themselves on a cold night.
As if that was not enough calamity, the whole of the traditional media in Nigeria “somehow” missed the story.
How on earth did that happen?
Most if not all of the newspapers and broadcast stations have correspondents in the state house. That the story of that incident did not hug headlines across the country begs a very important question.
That same question was raised few days ago when traditional media made a mess of the reportage of an incident at the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta.
On whose side exactly is the media?
By the way, the protest continued today, Monday, August 22. As at the time of compiling this post, they still had not seen the president..
