N-Power: The scamming of Arewa continues

Heads or tails, the North loses.

N-Power programme of the Federal Government which purposes to recruit 500,000 teachers began its journey by listing people from the South as beneficiaries of slots that should go to northerners.

When the office of the Vice President was asked about the lopsidedness, it said the recruitment was based on the state of residence not state of origin. Except that many southerners claiming to be resident in the North are not living here. How did I know? Because the locals said so.

It’s not even probable – statistically speaking. How could you have more southern names applying from a local government in the North?

Someone in a cyber cafe in Surulere could close their eyes and simply choose Bida as his local government. But let’s assume that those southerners are actually resident in the North.  How is it that my family members who applied from Minna didn’t get in, but the southerners in the city did?

Historically, the North gets cheated; whether it is in or out of power. This is so because the South continues to play victim by conveniently claiming a phantom northern domination.

That’s why the Federal Civil Service is dominated by southerners. Yes, take a census!

Previous excuse was that we’re not educated. That’s why our places were taken up by outsiders. But that excuse has run its course. For example, in my home town, the three nearest houses to my father’s house, all have PhDs. In mathematics. In mechanical engineering. In information technology.

However, the prevailing excuse now is that our people don’t apply for such positions. Sadly, even northerners support those who give voice to this speculative nonsense. Speculative because those who talk this trash do not have the facts because they’ve not been in the trenches helping the people to register.

Well, we have.

Since the campaigns that ushered in this administration, some of us regularly spend our money and time to ensure our people are registered for any national exercise – from voter’s card to empowerment programmes.

In the case of N-Power for example, when I travelled home and tried to offer assistance because I feared that our people may not register, I was pleasantly told that they had actually gone far. “The only problem we are having now,” one graduate told me, “is that the website keeps crashing.”

In one of our forums, a lawyer told us that she personally volunteered in Kano and many people donated their laptops so that the youth could register.

“I was at a centre four to five times to help out and was very impressed by the sensitization that was done, which made people to troop out to register. A centre was opened here in Kano and I know more than 400 qualified people were registered.”

From just ONE centre.

Another forum member said:”And just like what Barrister Huwaila said, Sha’aban Ibrahim Sharada single handedly made an announcement on Freedom Radio, of about three to fivecenters which were opened in Kano for Kano state indigenes.”

So don’t tell me our people didn’t apply. Here are more comments of those who applied and those who have people who applied.

Jaagi Abubakar:“Dr, may Allah Almighty continue to reward you for your love towards your people. I personally applied for the N-power programme after meeting all the requirements but wasn’t given. Yes, it’s Allah’s doing. My point, if it’s based on state of residence and not origin, why shouldn’t we be given instead of Igbos?”

Dr. Abubakar Kaka Sanda: “If you have ever been to the LGA [Abadam in Borno] you would know that the place is a homogeneous society of purely Kanuris and Muslims residing. It’s exclusively for them. Not even others from Borno state reside there. No one goes there only when it’s absolutely necessary. How can they make us believe that the residents outnumber the indigenes who are both residents and indigenes.”

Abubakar Yakubu: “I am also a victim. I was awake that night the site was opened to apply. I was among the first people to apply. I even applied for some people and also informed others to apply, but sadly our names were not listed while so many names of non-indigenes were listed from my local government. something has to be urgently done!”

Zainab Magaji:“It was the same thing that happened in Sure-P.”

Gwadabe Nana Asmau:“And YouWin.”

Shamsu Muhammad: “The state governments should take it up anyone that claims to reside in a local government would not be doing so in isolation,anybody that appears to claim such names should be made to show where he has been living in that local government and who his neighbours are, this will assist in fishing out genuine residents.”

Dr. Yusuf Sani: “Dr. Ibraheem Dooba I have just checked the list, one obvious tactic used to obfuscate this lopsidedness, and is a well-known technique of obfuscation, is to randomize a presentation. As humans, we find it difficult to discern pattern from random arrangement, few are able to do it, and even where the pattern is discerned, we always inadvertently underestimate its magnitude. Just check, you will see that the lists of most southern states are sorted according to the local government (since there is no need to hide anything), while almost all northern states are randomized (to clearly hide something). If you count the number of sorted lists in South and the unsorted lists in the North, it is definitely a deliberate and systemic attempt to manipulate the psyche of the viewers of the lists. If you have worked with any database, you would notice that the default setting generates list randomly (for some technical reasons) until otherwise programmed.”

What to do?

This recruitment is not just and we call for a review. And we’re tired of taking the blame even when we’re the victims. The N-Power website must have logged the IP addresses of applicants. Let’s analyze those addresses to see if claims of being resident in the North are genuine.