The ripping yarn of a shirt

A paper chase cornered

There are times that the ability to glean a fascinating piece of detail from an innocuous narrative is itself interesting and well fascinating. We go about our daily lives trying to do one thing or the other and as we try to complete something we are called to attend to something unplanned.

You determine that you need to arrest the lethargy of a bureaucracy and by your presence on the premises interacting with the heretofore faceless apparatchiks totally oblivious of who you are having mishandled you by the interminable shuffling of papers that travel from the In to the Indifferent, to the Ignored trays and never reaching the Out tray where some action will terminate in the realisation of your request.

More often it is wasted in a bin somewhere, never to be retrieved until filthy lucre oils the wheels of distress rather than progress. Parsimony being a strategy adopted with the impression that you can do what you can pay others to do. The observer disarmed by forthrightness restrains themselves from suggesting futility.

Wheeling an identity

Then the whole melee against officialdom is interrupted by a request for your presence at another place as the chariot of conveyance had inadvertently acquired a depressed wheel, for which the helpless is quite helplessly unable to help themselves that you become the saviour of the day. The one in the moment of need that becomes the next of kin.

On arrival, you approach the ground to survey the state of the chariot and a means to replace the wheel and as your back arcs in whatever dimension it is extended, your shirt splits down the middle on your back and what we have is a long-held secret revealed at an importune moment. You, the observer will marvel at the realisation that who you once knew might well not be the fictional Incredible Hulk, but a real living Hulk ready to change your tyres.

No one finds out until me and my big mouth unawares blurts out something we had better keep to ourselves, but how can we help ourselves when we are totally unaware of how the information we share would be bother understood and comprehended? In any case, the knowledge is valuable, and it always comes in useful.

The dead hand of bureaucracy

Agency is supreme

If there is anything a free agent as I can desire is that one never loses agency, the need outside the machinations of systems put in place to implement processes with no consideration of the people affected.

Incensed does not begin to describe the sense of unjust and atrocious manipulation one has been subjected to whilst apparatchiks go about ticking boxes, dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s, ensuring the P’s and Q’s are just right, aligning forms to readers and auditors whose main purpose is to see to the rules being followed as an embodiment of mendacious misrule.

One has suffered

How my person has been abused, the man in the middle trying to manage expectations completely oblivious of the indignities suffered at the hands of mindless bureaucracies seeking relevance where common sense has deserted the fray. Whilst one cannot say it has been intentional, the consequence has been no less demeaning, one’s interest in the project is now barely there but for the genuinely nice people we once called colleagues.

In all the toing and froing, it has been impossible to plan anything and in the process, a month has passed in what was supposed to be an interregnum of not more than a week. In my heart of hearts, finding something else would be the better part of the story. No one, I mean, no one, should be subjected to this sham of a system pretending to ensure everything is in order.

References

Blog - The auction of grey matter is open

Blog - Sitting here in limbo

Blog - Like pawns in the game of spaghetti red tape

Like pawns in the game of spaghetti red tape

Probably the end of an unplanned break

The fervent wish of a pawn is promotion,
If it has not been sacrificed in the commotion,
That scatters a chessboard in pandemonium,
As the players each seek to win and overcome,
The sudden employment interregnum,
Imposed in bureaucracies rather glum,
Has now apparently brought fruition,
The prospect of renewed utilisation.

Yet, we must not be too urgent and forward,
At the many assurances, some quite awkward,
As the bills are not paid with wishes and promises,
We are pawns tossed around by market forces,
If you are not paid to maintain allegiances,
You are open and considering other advances,
Until the contracts are signed with a seal,
We can confidently agree we have no deal.

Sitting here in limbo

A right old mess

I guess the song that might become an earworm without even having played it back or heard it in decades is Sitting In Limbo from Jimmy Cliff’s Another Cycle album released in 1971. It catches the zeitgeist like no other situation that might evince today.

In the strangest matter of coincidence with the dead hand of bureaucracy, a contract renewal is anything but, the spirit of the environment is willing, but the letter of the situation is an interminable chain of decisions, committees, assessments, and conclusions. Each a variable of unquantifiable measurement in days or requirements that the result might well not be bet on.

Nobody knows the plot

That is how, as this engagement ends with the prospect of our return, though we cannot say for how long, when for or whether at all the farewells should be said or deferred. Sitting here in limbo of events completely outside our control because needs must in the hands of those who see process rather than people and the extended effects on their lives, livelihoods, and humanity, we have become birds without songs.

Yet, we must not despair, for even in the midst and quagmire of uncertainty, limbo is a place of transition, as the music is on repeat playback in my head, these words, “Well, they're putting up a resistance, But I know that my faith will lead me on.”

Testing for the home straight

Our world today

It could be easy to be angry and disillusioned with the world when viewing the inconveniences, the restrictions, the limitations, and the encumbrances that present with this global pandemic. Without heaping opprobrium on any, what has been unleashed on us has had unimaginable consequences and brought catastrophic losses.

All this is exacerbated by inefficiencies and incompetence in policies, systems, planning, execution and governments, leaving us the people absorbing the absolutely dire consequences.

For instance, it is not even 9:00AM and I have found myself in a 60-deep queue trying to meet a stringent requirement on the pain of a hefty fine to be able to return home. I hate officialdom, but here we are, desperately trying to maintain social distancing and keeping our peace in the face of the untenable.

Organised in a way

Lancet Laboratories is making a wad, with their byline of ‘Key to diagnostic excellence’ they probably cannot be faulted for their diagnostic abilities, their organisational acumen however leaves much to be desired.

Two hours after I arrived, I was called into a testing room, my details recorded on the swab kit before the nurse donned a pair of disposable gloves and then proceeded to tickle my brain through my nostril, twisting and turning the swab to find the extent of my tolerance and with no consideration for my discomfort. It is probable I was being tested for endurance instead.

For it said

I held my breath all the while and when she had fulfilled her sadistic pleasure, pulling out the swab, I let out a gasp. Later, I was called in to pay up and then arrange for getting my test result with a turnaround between 24 to 48 hours.

Some 5 and a half hours later, I received my result, the app giving a more chemical prognosis stating that “SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid was not detected by means of a real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test.” I will be back there tomorrow to collect the stamped and signed certificate. The joys of travel have become a matter of compartmentalisation, perspective, and a sense of just being unflappable.

In embassies of embarrassment

Done without a fuss

This morning, I had an appointment at the British Consulate in Cape Town for 9:00AM. It was just a kilometre from our apartment and with a brisk walk, I was at the reception with 10 minutes to spare. The wait to get registered was exacerbated by people ahead of me who appeared to be unsure of why they were in the building and then by staff at the consulate itself acting like Pinky and Perky trying to discover my name from the appointment sheet.

Once I was let in, I filled in the CoVID-19 monitoring sheet along with my mobile phone number in a space that was not designated for that information but had to be entered by their instruction. Next, I rang the bell at the service counter and a very pleasant and friendly lady appeared, asked for what I was after, took a pre-typed form from the tray signed it and stamped it. My official purpose was done.

She wished me well as we had a little chat about my getting married, I was out of the building at 9:05 AM.

Moribund systems of angst

My consulate experience was easy, quick, and efficient. Then I learnt of another involving the US Consulate that required a payment for which there were no electronic payment systems that the person had to make a 10-hour round-trip to Cape Town just to make that payment. Bureaucracies can be completely insufferable and frustrating.

Just to the North of South Africa is Zimbabwe, and one would expect with a consulate in Cape Town, no one will suggest you must return to Zimbabwe to obtain a document you need for an activity in South Africa. That assumption was shot to bits when an official did say a document should first be obtained from the country and then brought to the consulate for certification.

There is no logical sense to this and apparently, no recourse to any alternative arrangements as it seems, the bureaucratic systems bequeathed to many Commonwealth states by the British have become beacons of red tape inertia, completely impervious to improvement or progress.

My experiences indicate

It reminds me of when I visited India in 2011 and the visa acquisition process was so fraught that my European or British citizenship almost counted for nothing that the pertinent information, they required related to that of my parents and I was already in my forties. Whilst it was eventually sorted out in 5 days, there was a likelihood of an 8-week processing time and I paid the processing fee a Nigerian would have paid, even though my passport was British.

However, in my experience, British consulates have been helpful and efficient. I would presume my status and standing gives me those privileges. Even in Nigeria over 30 years ago, it was a breeze for me when it might have been an ordeal for others. I knew why I was there, I had everything needed to request what I wanted, formalities were quickly dispensed with and we settled into banter and small talk with raucous laughter. It could be better for others too.

The UK: The politics of kissing about

Kissing hands

The bureaucracy that undergirds the government in the UK is so quite developed that it is possible for a Prime Minister to hand over power to another in a day without creating a power vacuum, we have continuity built into the system because of Her Majesty's Civil Service.

Yesterday afternoon, just two days after it was confirmed that Theresa May would be the only contestant for the leadership of the Conservative and Unionist Party, and being the party of government, consequently the Prime Minister, the First Lord of the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service; everything was set to commence a new dispensation of government.

David Cameron went to Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation to Her Majesty, The Queen, Elizabeth II and The Queen invited Theresa May to form a government. The prospective Prime Minister, when invited thus, is said to have been invited to kiss the hands.

Kissing up

This symbolic gesture includes pledging loyalty and fealty to the sovereign and by terms a requirement to serve in Her Majesty’s government.

The first act of the Prime Minister is to form a cabinet of ministers, the Prime Minister occupies the first Great Office of State and the other offices of The Chancellor of the Exchequer and The Second Lord of the Treasury (Finance Minister), The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and The Secretary of State for the Home Department are appointed by the Prime Minister, along with other members of the cabinet primarily from amongst elected and sitting members of the House of Commons.

Ministers of the Crown can also be appointed from the House of Lords and where civilians (non-members of parliament) are required to be ministers, they are ennobled by appointment to the House of Lords.

Kissing teeth

There is no nomination, vetting and confirmation process as seen in Presidential systems of government, the Prime Minister can appoint and sack ministers at their discretion. Though a gentle let-down would be to ask for the resignation of a minister, if the said minister has lost the confidence of the Prime Minister.

The cabinet posts come at the invitation of the Prime Minister and it can be the opportunity to kiss the butt when asked to serve or to kiss the dust when a promotion or a retention is denied.

Theresa May has made some interesting ministerial appointments, some that have had us kissing the teeth with Boris Johnson becoming the Foreign Secretary, how incredulous. Yet, we could be kissing the lips with Philip Hammond replacing George Osborne as the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Kissing dust

Michael Gove has been made to kiss the dust having kissed away opportunity by the way he betrayed Boris Johnson in running for the leadership of the Tory Party, though it goes without saying that Boris Johnson has a way of kissing up and falling upwards when others in the kinds of holes he has dug himself into would have no political mileage left in their careers.

Earlier in the day, we thought we had kissed goodbye the smug Jeremy Hunt as Secretary of State for Health, it was a false rumour, he retains the power to deliver the kiss of death to the NHS.

Kissing babies

Whilst we watch how Theresa May charts the course of her leadership, it is unlikely one is eager to kiss the ring with these personalities swanning around Whitehall. There’ll be a lot of kissing going on before the politicians begin to kiss the babies again in 2020.

Nigeria: #PayKeshi - A minister incapable of shouldering responsibility

Goaded by embarrassment

Nothing gets the Nigerian government of Goodluck Jonathan as agitated to be vituperative in overwhelming defence of their policies than a public embarrassment.

We must agree as they have severally demonstrated; they have no capacity for shame, but embarrassment shines a light into the nooks and crannies of the failings of the system that they close ranks sending out spokespersons to the media and Twitter/Facebook minions onto social media to stem the tide of criticism.

Yesterday, the calumny descended to a new low, quite shamefully contemptible that it left many seething with rage.

A man of distinction humiliated

Stephen Keshi, 51, as the manager of the Nigerian national football team since 2011 has won the Africa Cup of Nations in February 2013 and has successful added Nigeria to the contingent going to the Brazil FIFA World Cup in 2014. [Wikipedia] [Wikipedia]

Despite his successes as a homegrown coach, as at July 2013, he was owed five months’ salary and out of desperation in October he lamented that he was owed seven months’ salary. Some of this has now been paid. [BBC] [Vanguard Nigeria]

These were his words, in October, “The lowest point of my career is working and not being paid for seven to eight months. I have never had this kind of experience before.” [Vanguard Nigeria]

He earlier stressed the point with, “I am not being favoured. Whatever I am doing here, I am doing it with everything I have and I need to be respected and be paid.” [Vanguard Nigeria]

Stephen Keshi was then reacting to comments attributed to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF formerly the Nigeria Football Association NFA) that allowances and bonuses paid to coaching staff should be enough to sustain them. [Vanguard Nigeria]

A manner of calumny and atrocity

This appeared to embarrass the Minister of Sports, Bolaji Abdullahi, who yesterday upbraided Stephen Keshi for going public with this seriously untenable situation, some quotes from the news story are replicated verbatim below, courtesy of the Vanguard Nigeria newspaper. [Vanguard Nigeria]

“If NFA is having problems paying Keshi’s salary, it means that the system has a problem and that system has to be addressed.”

“When you get a job you do it and you don’t go about embarrassing your employers because your salary is delayed.”

Surely Keshi was right to talk

Nobody is saying the NFA/NFF does not have problems, however, if a performing and successful member of staff to whom the organisation has responsibilities and contractual obligations is not paid for up to 8 months that it becomes a demoralising and destabilising burden that could affect their productivity, there is cause for concern.

It is evident that from Stephen Keshi’s words that he was affected, despite that, he has fulfilled his contractual obligations without quibble, but with dedication and unrivalled patriotism worthy of the highest commendation.

And as the Sport Minister noted, if the NFA/NFF was having problems, it could report up the chain for intervention and resolution, it beggars belief that the NFF/NFA allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point that the coach had no other choice but to vent his spleen – 7 to 8 months with pay is just unspeakable.

A matter of assuming responsibility

This atrocity happened under the watch of the Minister of Sports. He had the choice of expediting the payment of all arrears along with an apology to all the staff owed their emoluments or in this case, for the embarrassment indicated by the failings of the NFA/NFF; he decided to make a villain of Stephen Keshi, a victim of the failed system in his ministry.

That is just shameful and lacking in sensitivity, though it is redolent of a culture of impunity amongst employers in Nigeria who get away with not paying salary on time, if at all with them demanding as in the words of the minister – “you get a job you do it and you don’t go about embarrassing your employers.”

I would say, the employer can avoid the embarrassment and shame by just paying the salaries.

That bill is essential

In conversations I participated in on Twitter, the matter of a third party owing the NFA/NFF sponsorship moneys was brought up. However, this is completely beside the point, a desperately unconscionable way to pass off blame and share the responsibility for what is essentially bureaucracy incompetence, lethargy, the lack of sensitivity and the lack of respect for the hardworking personnel who have brought plaudits and glory to Nigerian sport. [KickOff.com]

If the Workman (Unpaid Wages Prohibition) Bill had been passed through the legislative process to become law, the matter would have been cut-and-dried on the issue of responsibility. [Information Nigeria]

Somebody in the Sports Ministry hierarchy would have borne ultimate responsibility for the contracts and the payment of salaries to staff.

The organisation in the law would have faced a surcharge of up to 30% of two months’ wages for delaying salaries more than 30 days to a maximum of 60 days.

Any salary delays beyond 60 days will attract a 30% compensatory surcharge with the possibility of the employer serving a month in prison.

For Nigerian employees need it

The Minister clearly identified an employer – employee relationship between the coach and the NFA/NFF, a designated person will carry the sanction if imposed by the courts where the contractual obligations of prompt and full salary payments are left wanting.

It goes without saying that Nigeria is desperately in need of this punitive measure and law that protects the rights of employees whilst giving them the means to seek redress through an expedited legal process that provides specific legal guidance as to what is due, fair and just.

The NFA/NFF under the threat of sanction would have done everything possible to meet their obligations and the minister would have had no justification whatsoever to excoriate Stephen Keshi for speaking out for his right to be paid on time, in full, with due respect, courtesy and dignity becoming of an exemplary and hardworking Nigerian of repute and accomplishment.

A real man shares blame and glory

The Sports Minister has the gall to step forward to share in the laurels and the glory of sporting successes of Nigerians who still excel in spite of and despite the incompetence and negligence of the rotten bureaucracy, he heads. Where that system fails, he should unashamedly shoulder the responsibility for the lapses and the atrocities without looking to pass off blame to others.

His statement about Stephen Keshi was at best regrettable much as it was the display of utterly reprehensible conduct.

The humility of accepting blame

Those who have found ways to agree with the minister must for once find the humility in and magnanimous heart to sensitively take full responsibility and sue for justice rather than shirk and dissemble with sophistry.

Beyond this, Stephen Keshi becomes a poster boy for the many millions of Nigerians who have suffered the indignities of slave labour extracted on the forlorn hope of salaries that will never materialise.

I hope the legislature now sees why the passage of the Workman (Unpaid Wages Prohibition) Bill is of the utmost urgency with the case of Stephen Keshi putting a human face to unacceptable business practices in Nigeria.

In form for more forms

Back to form of forms

Gathered strangers of situation and circumstances from all walks of life seeking new relevance in the world of work.

Under the tutelage of some who for reason and opportunity find a calling in what they do as opposed to what they could do if they cared little.

Yet, they are all caught in the maelstrom and spectrum of ability that ranges from the talentless in other departments to the talented in company, the impartations sometimes useful or sometimes useless.

Tumbled by slumber

Forms ruled the day as time fillers and occupational activity, but one whose slumber interrupted his ability to keep pace was sent to his bed with much agitation, his bad luck, a result of his not being able to keep his eyes open.

Maybe he should have declared Human African trypanosomiasis as a condition, but he did not look African, probably he was a somnambulist and the course leader might have been a bit lenient, but the class being held back meant progress was too slow to retain any patience.

There is no shame is saying you have sleeping disorder, there are therapies and help available to those who recognise their frailties, but that is by the by.

Interesting insights

The discussions, lively, funny and humorous, the time passed with periods of boredom helped along with engagement and banter, sometimes skirting the risqué but never offensive – friendships can grow from this.

Why do you want this job?

What skills do you possess that makes you the right person for this job?

Apparently, those two questions are essentially the same question phrased differently and can be asked at different ends of the interview with the interviewer expecting similar rather than different answers.

In closing

However, one should hope that interviewers are not rigidly schooled in particular expectations without the flexibility to assess the total person beyond the rote of function and conformity.

A few more hand-outs, the polishing up of the marketing literature and the mandated requirement was completed to satisfaction with a certificate to boot.

Here is to better luck, favour and good fortune in the next endeavour.

Sent on a fool's errand to possible frustration

Like a fool’s errand

At a government mandated training course this morning where the disconnect between all related departments became so apparent that it was laughable, the dead hand of government protocols landed with a thud before us.

The question was whether any of the participants knew why they had to attend the course on advice and instruction of their advisors, for literally all the answers given, none was close.

Persuade to dissuade

The referral office was just ticking boxes without knowledge of the reasons to tick boxes, as each answer ranged from helping to write CVs, finding work for long-term unemployed, interviewing technique tips and useful preparations for work.

Surreptitiously, part of the purpose of sending people for this course is to frustrate them off the welfare roll and at least one of the attendees disappeared the moment the group broke up for the first break session.

To the market with the marketable

However, in the midst of the mundane and rudimentary, there are nuggets of wisdom, clues as to how people can alter their outlook and mind-set, leading to gainful employment.

Fundamentally, a CV is marketing literature; it is the means of selling yourself to the market. A market seeking talent and expertise you may possess.

The CV should create enough curiosity to excite interest, but it should never be overloaded such that there are no discussion points to give depth and detail to the ability and personality of the person.

The demeanour to project

We rise to challenges thrown our way in everyday walks of life but that boldness and confidence with which we effortlessly tackle problems seems to be lost at interview.

It is important to act naturally, being oneself rather than trying to impress thereby giving rise to nervousness, one of the factors indicative of poor interview technique.

Blessed at the font of the double page

The advice whilst useful could be quite prescriptive as preferred fonts being Garamond or Verdana, set headings providing uninspiring structure, page setups with set margins or that a CV must never exceed two pages with the employment history restricted to five years except for security or artistic roles.

For information technology roles, the suggestion is to use LinkedIn to document the other roles or have a webpage containing that detail.

Some things

Avoid clichés like ‘hard-working’ or ‘customer service skills’ in the profile because people are expected to be hard-working regardless, and customer service skills are innately functions of a person’s respect for others, acting courteously, politely and with a friendly disposition – you either have it or not.

Besides all this, forms, yes, many forms filled to the point of distraction but with the challenges, opinions, reviews, assessments and the ideas, it really was not a wasted day. Another day of observation and participation is set for the morrow.

The UK: Caressed by the dead hand of government protocols

Fill the will

Forms are what I encountered this afternoon, a meeting with officialdom that started with a convenient, but extraneous data-entry on my laptop just two days before.

Yesterday afternoon I received a text message on my mobile phone scheduling an appointment for today, just a 10-minute walk from where I now live.

On arrival, I was greeted and asked to take a seat and expect Irene attend to me, but instead a gentleman came round to get me a good 40 minutes after the appointed time without apology.

Sign and whine

After introductions and a number of printouts I had to proofread and other questions I had to ask, I scrawled my signature at least 15 times on all sorts of documents to gain access to a support framework.

He said there was a form I had to fill in; the instruction was everyone had to fill the form in especially if you had lived out of the UK for more than 13 weeks in the last two years.

However, logic escaped its function because out of 12 questions, there was none I could answer because I am British citizen and every option it presented pertained to Mainland European citizens and beyond.

Where I was to present an identity document, there was no requirement of a UK passport, yet, I had to bend the logic to complete the first part and the sign it before he registered me for another needless meeting with some other official.

Bureaucracy to make you crazy

It was the dead hand of government; forms aping formula without function, exercises that exercised your patience into frustrated resignation as apparatchik automatons gave the zombie of government exhausted of life, long before we were born purpose for existence.

I will not suffer too much in this, as I am on therapy, and I engage my hospital in my holistic well-being, anything untoward I will offload unto them to resolve. My mental state remains sacrosanct. I will not entertain the attempts of the state to sap every will out of the person in what they term encouragement to purpose by negative inducement.

Yes, bureaucracies are there to make you crazy, not if I can help it.

Thought Picnic: A Task of an Ask

What an atrocity of wasted time

Nothing is more annoying than when jobs are created for people for the sake of it and in the process what was a simple process of interaction becomes a bureaucracy bottleneck of suddenly officious personnel frustrating others.

For a long time before I arrived on the scene, you got access just by asking reception, there was a sign emblazoned at reception saying this service is available on request from the same reception staff, no questions, no quibbles and no red-tape.

Inserting frustration

However, now a layer of unnecessary officialdom has been added to the workflow, even though ultimately the reception staff will service the request, the poor requester now has to do double legwork to get anything done.

The sign is still there but a renewal now requires that we visit reception to learn that we need to contact some pen-pusher who will click a button to ask reception to grant access whilst asking you enter the bureaucratic nightmare of service requests that end up on the desks of first responders whose powers of the basic perception of communication will make explaining the very visually graphical scene to the those with severe sensory deprivation a greater pleasure.

Bothering less

I wonder to myself if I really want to run the gauntlet of this essential to them but somewhat cumbersome for me situation, there are things that are not worth the bother besides creating a situation that the frustrated get creative and for all the resourcefulness available to man will be much tempted to break the system and get the fresh air of freedom and liberty.

As I write, the pen has been pushed but the reaction is late in coming, a 5-minute ask is easily becoming a 1-hour task for the sake of God knows what but eternal frustration.

Let’s not ruin a fine day, when it happens, it happens.

Thought Picnic: The molds of bureaucracy

A mold

Bureaucracies are a strange life form, a system of well laid out processes that never seem to engage clockwork efficiency of alacrity or urgency.

Like mold, it takes away fervency or freshness leaving a footprint of lethargy, inertia and boredom as time ticks away as if it has no function of measurement than an abyss of nothingness clawing in darkness.

Those who people it

Yet, agents and agencies desire the omnipresence of bureaucracy to ensure that those who depend on it are introduced to the fact that they are powerful, they have responsibilities and they move on a whim except when coerced from above to do what could have been done long before without fuss.

Yet, we wait, almost helpless, almost hopeless and almost listless that a time will come when bureaucracy moving as it might be at a speed that makes drying paint look instantaneous, bureaucracy will finally respond to why it was put in place to fulfil all righteousness and to give the needlessly engaged a sense of purpose.

Complicate the simple with ease

You have to ask why what is seemingly easy to do is made unnecessarily complicated, inscrutable and impossible to action immediately, if not for each little person in the bureaucratic workflow to engage in the power-play of self-importance to the detriment of the organisation at large.

Nowhere was it self-evident than when I visited two banks to open accounts. In the first, I had to book an appointment for the next day, go through tens of questions, sign forms to the point that my fingers bled ink into the cuneiform of my signature and yet will wait days to be able to access the account for business.

The second just required a walk-in on a Saturday afternoon, I was seeing an advisor in 10 minutes and within 30 minutes, I had a bank card and my account was live for transactions, just like that.

It goes without saying that there is probably a century of history between the first and the second bank which is nimble, modern and streamlined to eliminate the encumbrance of bureaucratic time-wasting pretending to back-office operations.

Times change but not for that

What seems well-oiled to whoever set up that system does not really fit into the generally instantaneous gratification that we all have acquired through the shortness of attention spans that has become our way of life by reason of competition for our skill and subservience to some greater or lesser cause.

There might be use for mold as there is use for bureaucracy if you are part of it rather than depending on it.

One learns patience before aggravation, calm before disquiet and acquiescence before complaint when faced with immotile bureaucracy, we are forced to find the kind of inducement that will set a bureaucracy off like an avalanche towards the solution – by which time, a lesson is learnt, no improvements are made and the next person down the line succumbs to the throes of that wonderfully tortuous wringer called bureaucracy – it is just the way we have always done things, you are told.

Nigeria: More on the Paralympians' Allowances Story

It was a good news story

Yesterday, I wrote a blog based on a news story published in the Nigerian Tribune with regards to the payment of allowances to our Nigerian Paralympic contingent to the London Paralympic 2012 Games.

It was titled Nigeria: Do Right By Our Paralympians Before Sundown and I challenged the senior sports administrators of Nigeria to address the issue with immediate effect.

A confrontation

By the evening whilst I was travelling in and out of mobile telephony areas on the London Underground trains I got involved in a direct confrontation on Twitter with @MrFixNigeria, the sometimes feisty and sometimes level-headed  Special Assistant  (Advocacy) to the Minister of Sports.

Now, a slightly truculent @MrFixNigeria was of the opinion that I was peddling an unverified fictitious report on the basis of him having confirmed from the Chef de Mission had said that the athletes where paid accordingly.

Accordingly is sophistry

One then asked what accordingly really meant and how accordingly could have somehow given rise to a fictitious report in a national newspaper about a protest, the payment in dollars and the difference in payments made to the Paralympians compared to the Olympians only weeks before.

The reporter who filed the story signed off as being in London, it would be rather atrocious if not mendacious for a newspaper to unnecessarily forment a crisis and create a controversy on the payment of allowances just to embarrass the sports bureaucracy – on balance, every Nigerian contingent to an international event has had to protest about allowances and I know that when I attended the Nigeria v Bulgaria match at the France 1998 World Cup in Paris, there was a threat of a walkout just because of allowances too.

A Google search for Nigerian Team Allowances presents pages of references indicating the story does have some provenance and elements of truth.

Ask the athletes, not the chiefs

The Nigerian Tribune in my view engaged in a spot of investigative journalism that does not paint of the officials in any good light and the least they should do for matters of both integrity and reputation is to speak directly to the athletes about their concerns and experiences rather than insulate themselves from the core issues that should inform any policy for change and reform they might consider to prevent sporting disasters in the future.

I hold this view more strongly because in conducting his London 2012 Olympic Review as the Olympics were closing a few weeks ago, it appeared the Sport Minister had laid out a whole range of interesting reforms without input borne of debriefing the athletes or their coaches – the danger is such a review will not by any stretch of the imagination address the fundamental issues athletes and coaches face in preparing for international competitions.

The arms-length approach of hierarchical reporting when matters go wrong in the lower cadres will only present to officialdom a false sense of order and efficiency with the athletes being frustrated by their lack of access to the people who really can ensure that the chain of command that guarantees their welfare is clued-in on what it will take for an athlete to perform at their best without distractions.

Get a shop floor view, first-hand

My advice to the Sports Minister and his Special Assistant is to go to the shop floor and get their hands dirty, find out how each sport works from the view of those who really have to sweat it out to bring back the laurels.

This should be first to squelch every rumour of impropriety or ascertain how and why story like the one I wrote about became a topic of discussion either as the truth of the situation or otherwise.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Paralympic contingent has added another gold medal to their Powerlifting tally bring the medal haul to 5 Golds, 5 Silvers and 1 Bronze – it is the sports officials that now have to make themselves worthy of the task they have of ensuring our heroes are not distracted by incompetence and other shenanigans.

Nigeria: Do Right By Our Paralympians Before Sundown

Hail our heroes

As at this morning the Nigerian contingent to the London 2012 Paralympic Games has won 10 medals in the Powerlifting sport with 4 Golds, 5 Silver and 1 Bronze shared amongst 4 gentlemen and 6 ladies.

This means in the best attended and arguably the best representative Paralympic Games ever, we have gloriously heard the strains of the Nigerian national anthem played out to the whole world four times and had Nigerians step up to take other laurels six times.

Considering what a debacle the Nigerian outing to the Olympic Games was earlier in August, these paralympians have singlehandedly with guts, ability, spirit, dedication, resolve and amazing patriotism put Nigeria on the Paralympic map at the 14^th position and leading the Powerlifting medal table comfortably.

Sports bureaucracy failing us again

It should not have been beyond the capability of the redolently incompetent sports bureaucracy to have learnt some quick lessons from London 2012 to have been better prepared to do right by the Nigerian Paralympic contingent to ensure that they are being dealt with fairly, justly, honourably, respectfully and with consideration on all matters with regards their welfare and all they need to represent Nigeria without being subject to unnecessary pressures and angst.

I woke up this morning to read a manifest injustice meted out on our patriots by some faceless and unconscionable officials who should by all rights be out of a job before the sun goes down if there is any justice in this world and if the Sport Minister and his gilded entourage along with the much vaunted tough-talking will act to clean up the unforgivable atrocities that have bedevilled Nigerian sports administration for too long.

Too many wrongs unforgiveable

First is the matter of the late payment of allowances, we have always been tardy with payments that are due across the board in all walks of life in Nigeria but it is no excuse to have high-profile representatives of Nigeria suffer such indignities when they are supposed to be concentrating in beating the world and bringing glory to Nigeria – that this singular view was lost on the sports officials is regrettable to say the least.

Secondly, the athletes are in the United Kingdom where the British Pound is legal tender, there is no reason why the athletes should have been paid allowances in dollars and then have to run the gauntlet of being creamed off by others waiting in the shadows to exchange the currency to pounds.

The sports officials should have converted the allowances to pounds before paying the allowances; it was just an unnecessary burden to place on the athletes who in terms might have been desperately in need of the allowances that some rotten official thought to exploit their vulnerability.

Short-changed by £1,329

Thirdly is the matter of equality in representation. It is instructive to see Paralympians bring recognition and glory to Nigeria that seemingly and apparently more able Olympians failed to do. There is no reason why any sports representatives of Nigeria should be treated differently, unequally and with contempt.

Apparently, the luckless Olympians were paid £2,400 and now the Paralympics contingent was paid $1,700 (£1,071 @ today’s exchange rate from Google) suggesting they have been dealt an inequality blow and short-changed by £1,329. It is unbelievable that anyone in charge of sports administration will sanction this atrocity and expect to get away with impunity.

Equality is the biggest message

If for any reason not enough money was allocated for the allowances of the Paralympic contingent, then I expect that all is done to make up that shortfall by every means possible. The success of the Paralympic contingent should be a ringing endorsement of challenged people to come out and be the best they can be in any endeavour they choose to embark on.

It should be the impetus for equality legislation that no matter how impaired physically or mentally you might be in Nigeria, you will not be discriminated against, you will be accorded due courtesies, respect and access to all opportunities that are available to Nigerians and those who contemn, disparage, denigrate or belittle you will face the law with punitive compensations made out to those affected.

Minister, step up

This, I believe will be the first test of the Sport Minister Bolaji Abdullahi’s resolve to change the face of sport in Nigeria or continue to allow impunity and incompetence to reign in our sports bureaucracy.

To go into speculation as to why one has had to write this piece will be too unreadable for the disgust that it will raise, the only remedy to this matter is to do right by our Paralympic contingent – Pay them their allowances, pay them £2,400, pay them in British pounds, pay them now and make a public shame of all those involved in this disgraceful debacle.

The time to remedy this situation is now, along with compensation for the unnecessary hardship and exasperation caused our heroic athletes – these allowance protests at every sports meeting must stop forthwith – Enough is enough! 

Nigeria: Just Pay NYSC Allowances on-time

The corps

The weekend had me a bit incensed when an apparent injustice borne of rank incompetence appeared to be addressed with platitudes, excuses, inaction and sophistry bordering on indifference.

The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) established in 1973 was a way to promote integration in Nigeria just soon after the civil war where graduates of tertiary institutions are called to serve the country for the period of a year.

Recently, there have been discussions about the relevance of the NYSC and rightly so for reasons of the adequate provision of protection and security of deployed people usually known are corpers as quite a few have lost their lives to mobs and rioters especially after the elections of 2011.

Other issues have questioned whether it does promote integration, whether it prepares the youth for the job market and with all the reforms and restructuring whether it is anymore fit for purpose – these are pertinent questions that need asking and should fare in intelligent debate about what it means to be called to serve Nigeria at the height of your potential.

The NYSC is managed by the Ministry of Youth Development and it commands probably the highest percentage of expenditure of the ministry such that one would expect that due attention is given to its effective management and priority is given to matters that pertain to the corpers.

The situation started off on Twitter as news filtered through that allowances for April had not yet been paid and this was as at the 12^th of May 2012. The allowances are just at subsistence level and there is very little reason why the system should break at the point where it is most critical to the affected.

God rest you hungry people

The current SA (Advocacy) to the Minister of Youth Development who goes by the Twitter handle @MrFixNigeria started off with the following two tweets.

#DearNigerianYouthCorper I have brought the issue of your unpaid April 2012 allowance to the attention of the Honorable Minister. 11:45 AM - 12 May 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry® [Detail]

#DearNigerianYouthCorper Please be rest assured to get some positive feedback soon. Watch this space. And God be with you all. 11:46 AM - 12 May 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry® [Detail]

If the matter were not so serious this statement demanded that the person be laughed to scorn, but it was too important to let go just like that.

Unhelpful words

These are the series of tweets I posted in response.

I like the "God be with you." prayer given by @MrFixNigeria for corpers but really, what they want is a system that just works.

Yes, we need God but human-beings are sometimes in the way of letting God do something because they are not doing their jobs.

It is not enough succour to pat the hungry on the head saying God be with you, feed them, clothe them, shelter them - That's God with them.

@MrFixNigeria The positive feedback they want is the allowances paid pronto not some new assurances and much talk.

I cannot understand how people in charge of the NYSC scheme cannot see that it is unconscionable that allowances haven't yet been paid.

Meanwhile, @MrFixNigeria launched into a series of patronising and unrelated tweets that did nothing to help the situation distracting us from the issue with examples of other countries running a youth service scheme whilst the elephant in the room was the apparent obliviousness of himself to the plight of the corpers until that time and the possibility that the minister in charge had only just been made aware of rank incompetence under his watch.

It gets more annoying

And so I added the following viewpoints.

@MrFixNigeria The reasons why the relevance of the NYSC crops up are obvious to you and I sort those issues out and no debate.

@MrFixNigeria The non-payment of allowances on time is NOT a challenge, it's rank incompetence celebrated from Minister downwards.

@MrFixNigeria The NYSC scheme is the most visible aspect of your ministry because it deals with core youth potential of Nigeria.

@MrFixNigeria That the management of allowances has descended in something approaching a farce is atrocious in the extreme.

@MrFixNigeria And for all the countries that have youth service schemes, after 40 years of ours, it should be exemplary not incompetent.

@MrFixNigeria Please, I think the NYSC people have been patronised enough, all these your tweets are adding insult to injury.

This @MrFixNigeria should work on fixing things, the tweets I am reading are like sophistry of the most hated apparatchik. Not Good!

@ikeamadi I'm really politely telling him to "Shut Up" and only return when he has useful news for the NYSC guys. @MrFixNigeria

The duty of care

The government owes people called into its service a duty of responsibility to ensure they are paid on time and treated with dignity.

The tweets have in and of themselves made the case I am trying to make, which is it is sad to see such a situation develop that the youth in government find themselves unable to be properly representative of their peers but get caught up on patronising talk that is just entirely unhelpful.

Other responses attracted well-deserved opprobrium and whilst I am not keen on the abuse of people on twitter, it so happens that excoriation in the Nigeria is mostly delivered through insults - @MrFixNigeria was in fix, tampering with what he could not fix and pretending to be in the centre of fixing what the ministry he works for should never have allowed to break in the first place.

Nothing can piss you off more than to have vacuous official-speak thrown at your dire circumstances. It is not too much to ask that allowances be paid on time.

Thought Picnic: Wearing an Incredible Smile to India

Smile!

There probably is a prayer that should cross one’s lips even you are not a spiritual person. “May my face continually light up with a smile and laughter fill my mouth with all the joy that it brings.”

That is the way I felt when I collected my passport this afternoon from the agency that handles visa management for the Indian Embassy in the Netherlands.

As I had written before in a blog about my experiences without directly mentioning India, I am planning on attending courses in India before the year runs out.

It means nowt to them

Now, by holding a British passport, I thought I would be insulated from the bureaucratic insurmountables (sic) of other citizenry but I learnt a good few things in the process.

I do need a visa to visit India, no matter what I want to do there, I do not get treated like a European citizen even though most Indians visiting mainland Europe would in terms get a Schengen visa.

However, what really got to me was the idea that my British citizenship by birth along with a British passport could count for almost nothing if your parents are Nigerian.

Head spinning hoops

Whilst one can appreciate their need of ancestral facts with regards to people of Indian heritage seeking to acquire Indian citizenship, it should really not extend to those whose countries have already processed and affirmed the status of their citizens.

Apart from the hoops that one had to leap through with regards to the right visa to apply for which for me started as a tourist visa, then a business visa until we settled on an entry visa, all of which included 5 visits to 3 different locations trying to ensure all that was required was done, I had to fill in a supplementary form and pay an extra fee predicated on my ancestry.

Of days, months long

Altogether, the processing an entry visa according to the website site could take up to 8 weeks, the filling in of the supplementary form, another 10 days and there was every reason to think one would be marooned in the Netherlands without papers for a good two and a half months – some bordering on the untenable.

I wrote to our consulate about the matter of my citizenship and I did get a reply; something along the lines that it is good to know that this is happening and that it will be forwarded to some department. My response is still in the draft folder; I really could not be bothered any further.

Yearning, waiting, hoping

What I knew I want to happen beyond where I had control to influence things was the abundance of favour spiritual and temporal, there wasn’t much time left and the closer we got to the time, the dearer the flights become.

Each day, I checked the online tracking service not sure of what other status to expect apart from the fact that my application had been sent to the Indian Embassy in The Hague. Late on Friday, the status had changed signifying I should come to collect my passport but no indication as to whether I had been granted the visa.

One did suspect, if the who process took 6 working days, they probably had looked at all the documentation I submitted and decided there was no need to pursue the ancestry issue.

Phew! That was a race

In some cases, I could content I had one of the most complete applications for my type of visa, besides all the documents of self-cognisance and a local government document indicating when I arrived in the Netherlands, the training firm sent a letter of invitation, their certificate of incorporation and their licence to trade with exceptional status.

The visa is like none I have ever seen before; it looks like my passport identity page with machine readable information and my picture with particular detail about my mission – not for the faint-hearted.

Now, I have just a few days to get things ready for a month-long trip which would be intensive training and examinations in readiness for 2012. I had better start packing; at least, I have already been to the pharmacy to replenish my supply my pills.

In all, I am thankfully for how this burdensome process is looking hitch free and putting a smile on my face.