Remembering Nigeria’s Sharpville

           

Today, heads of governments and citizens across the globe will mark Human Rights Day. It is a day set aside for the world to eliminate all forms of racial segregation. The offshoot of this event dates back to the Sharpville Massacre.

Sharpville is a black township near Vereeniging, South Africa. The Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), a splinter group of the African National Congress (ANC) created in 1959, organized a countrywide protest for the abolition of South Africa’s pass laws. South Africa’s pass laws required black South Africans to carry passbooks with them any time they travelled out of their designated home areas.

The African National Congress, the leading anti-apartheid organization of the era, planned for an anti-pass campaign to begin March 31, 1960. However, the Pan Africanist Congress, a more militant offshoot of the A.N.C., organized a campaign that would begin 10 days before the A.N.C.’s, March 21. Participants were instructed to surrender their passbooks and invite arrest.

A few days before the massacre, a pamphlet was circulated in the townships near Vereeniging (Sharpeville, Bophelong, Boipatong, and Evaton) calling for people to stay away from work on the Monday. The PAC, however, was not prepared to leave the protest to public choice. Testimony was given at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings that the telephone lines between Sharpeville and Vereeniging were cut on the Sunday evening, and that (some) bus drivers were detained until the Monday morning to stop people travelling out of Sharpeville to work.

By 10 in the morning almost 8,000 protesters had assembled in the centre of Sharpeville, from where they walked to the police compound. Similar groups (about 4,000 in total) walked from Bophelong and Boipatong to the police station at Vanderbijlpark, whilst a larger gathering of almost 20,000 people formed at the police station in Evaton.

The March 22, 1960, New York Times reported that, “South African Air Force planes flew over the trouble spot in a show of force. But the Africans ignored all orders to disperse.”

In the afternoon, small scuffles broke out and some demonstrators began throwing rocks at the police. As the crowd moved forward toward one scuffle, the police began firing into the crowd.

Somewhere between 50 and 75 of the police opened fire. The crowd initially confused, and perhaps thinking the police were using blanks, stood still. It was not until the bodies started to fall that they ran. The police continued to shoot the protesters even as they fled from the site. Of the 180 injured, only 30 had been shot from the front. The injured included 31 women and 19 children, while among the 69 killed, eight were women and ten children.

The April 3, 1960 New York Times published an account by Humphrey Tyler, an assistant editor at Drum magazine who was white, who described the demonstration as peaceful and little threat to the officers’ safety. He wrote: “We heard the chatter of a machine gun, then another, then another. Bodies were falling. Hundreds of children were running. Some of the children were shot, too. Still the shooting went on.”

Till date, some of the victims of that massacre still live with the scar of that incident. It was said that many school children were either trampled upon or wounded.

Today, 54 years later, we rise as one, in one voice to not only condemn this act but to also condemn all acts that will lead to any form of discrimination, economic, religious, political and most of all racial. It is time for the world to wake up to some realities facing it. In clear terms, Sharpville has been described as ‘a hellhole with a claim to history’. Though Late Nelson Mandela had deemed it fit to sign the country’s constitution there, the citizens of Sharpville overtime have come out to protest economic turmoil and abandonment by government,

In his address to the world, United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, said, “Sharpeville will be remembered as a symbol of the terrible toll of racial discrimination, and we honour those who lost their lives during the massacre. At the same time, we recall that President Mandela framed Sharpeville’s legacy as an unwavering resolve to protect the dignity and rights of all people.

The lessons of South Africa’s staunch defence of equality “out of the many Sharpevilles” in the country’s history can be applied anywhere in the world, not only in response to organized, institutional forms of racism but wherever this pernicious problem occurs, including in daily interpersonal relations”.

Mr Moon however called on all people, especially political, civic and religious leaders, to strongly condemn messages and ideas based on racism, racial superiority or hatred as well as those that incite racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. On this Day, he said, let us acknowledge that racial discrimination remains a dangerous threat and resolve to tackle it through dialogue inspired by the proven ability of individuals to respect, protect and defend our rich diversity as one human family.  

As Africans remember the Sharpville Massacre today, in the same vein we remember the Nigerians who died during the last recruitment exercise by the Nigerian Immigrations Service. Some reports say they were 16, others put the number at 20. But it is a consensus that they were killed by the state.

 I categorically state that Mr Abba Moro the minister for interior ought to resign in the interest of Nigerians. If he supervised such a suicide mission in the name of recruitment exercise, he ought not to be there. If he didn’t question officers under his supervision concerning the logistics of the exercise, he should voluntarily resign. If he didn’t deem it fit to ensure that all the structures are put in place to handle the large number of applicants (an agency under his custody willingly invited), he ought to resign out of free will as he lacks the basic leadership initiative to run a sensitive position like his. But he will not do it. That sit-tight ideology and orientation that is characteristic of Africans runs in his blood. So, rather than come out and apologise for administrative inadequacies and criminal tendencies of high ranking executives in his ministry, he did what many other Nigerian government ministers and officials will do- pass the buck.

Mr. Moro held the applicants responsible, saying they "lost their lives through their impatience."

The News Agency of Nigeria quoted him as saying that many of the applicants "jumped through the fences of affected centres and did not conduct themselves in an orderly manner ... This caused stampedes and made the environment unsecured." A very lame excuse if you ask me.

More posers

But there are issues in this recruitment exercise that leave a sour taste in the mouth. How could a sensitive federal government with a growing population of unemployed youths still charge N1, 000 for applying for the job? Where will an unemployed youth (who is already a burden to his or her family) get it from?  If it is said that the recruitment exercise will be a source of internally generated revenue, I strongly feel this is a dumb idea. Somebody is being paid month after month for being physically present in the office without being productive. Analysts argue that though The West have no mineral resources yet  their economy is stable and strong; their employment profile high and unemployment profile low;  their level of development is at an accelerated pace. Bearing in mind the crude oil profile of the country in connection with the poverty profile of majority of these unemployed youths, it simply means somebody is not thinking, yet they are paid from our tax money each month.

These are the real people who should join Moro to the exit door.

If the Immigration Service was looking for 4,000 suitable Nigerians to fill up vacant positions, when 20,000 people had applied, the most honourable thing to do was to close the web portal. Why rip hapless Nigerians off in a most senseless and heartless way?  This goes to show the average mentality of many appointed and elected office holders. They have little sympathy for needs and yearnings of Nigerians. There is a big disconnect between the government, its agencies and the people. There is a huge gap between the rich and the poor. Moro has more than spit on the graves of these innocent Nigerians by calling them impatient.

 Question is, if he had done his little bit as a chairman to alleviate poverty in his local government area, he would have done enough to reduce the number of people attending the exercise and in so doing reducing the chances of a stampede!

Again there were accusations that 65,000 applicants were made to use a 60,000 capacity stadium in Abuja. This is absolutely unacceptable. President Jonathan ought to remove him. He is not only insulting the intelligence of Nigerians but also taking us for a ride. In climes where things work, either the applicants protest (like in Sharpville) or they canvass for a bigger and better place or the exercise will be postponed. This again shows how insensitive a man in such a position could be. I am double sure that he will never wish any of his children to be in such a stadium or such an exercise.

There is also the money angle where civil rights activists are calling for the head of Moro to be prosecuted. It is my candid opinion that it is only when we see his agency’s annual return and the money is missing that criminal prosecution will set in. This does not exonerate him from being prosecuted for official greed and misleading Nigerians. But will Abba Moro ever be prosecuted for the deaths of these young Nigerians and for continued sale of application forms even when it was clear that applications had exceeded triple the vacant positions?

On the flipside, people (including me) are pointing accusing fingers at the Minister of Interior, Mr. Abba Moro yet nobody is talking about the real masterminds behind the deaths, Comptroller General of NIS, Plateau state born Mr. David Shikfu Parradang and staff of the Human Resource Directorate of the NIS. When the Nigerian Immigration Service was restructured in line with advancement in the world, the Human Resource Directorate was created. It was saddled with seven responsibilities top of which is ‘appointment, promotion and discipline’. Other responsibilities include staff welfare and gender, training and staff development and personnel among others. For failing in their role to conduct a simple recruitment exercise, I strongly recommend they should be sanctioned. They cannot expect to be paid from the public treasury if one of them cannot sit down to think out some creative and ingenious ways to go about hassle free recruitment exercises. Most of them have gone through the process and experienced how tiresome, hectic and even fatal the exercise can be. Yet, year after year they do not sit down for a couple of minutes to offer alternative solutions, to save fellow Nigerians. The irony of it all is that year after they are paid from the peoples’ tax money. Any month their salary is delayed for five days or more, they threaten mass action. They should be sent on compulsory retirement irrespective of how many years they have being in the service.

They belong to the league of men who on a yearly basis conduct the same recruitment exercise that kill our people and on a yearly basis, the excuse we get is the same lame excuse of stampede. Nobody has been accused of negligence of duty for not coming up with ingenious and improved ways of recruitment in a 22^nd century. For being creative in terms of accumulation of cash, I rate them high. For being callous in extorting jobless Nigerians, I rate them very low. For being dumb with logistics arrangement during the exercise, I rate them very low.

As we join the world to end all forms of racial discriminations, I am of the view that  all economic and political ‘Sharpvilles’ which have killed even more people now than ever be put to a stop.

Addendum:

Though FG has suspended the said recruitment exercise and promised automatic slots to families of victims among other freebies, I am of the opinion that this Nigerian Sharpville ought not to happen if Abba Moro and his deputies had put heads together to tidy all the loose ends. This singular error of judgement that caused the death of Nigerians is enough to sack him.

To all strong men who will today file out to mark Soweto Day, it is not Uhuru yet. But we will continue to fight for equality and social justice

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