Primitive persons In Government or (PIG).

In the last one week or so, I have posted on facebook and commented on the report of the alleged wife-battery by Nigeria's High commissioner to Kenya, Dr. Chijioke Wigwe who has recently been recalled and may be investigated at home. Yesterday, a friend asked me 'how' such a 'primitive' man was appointed in the first place. I here attempt to answer that.

This is how it works. The president nominates someone (please read my yesterday's facebook analysis of reasons for nominations/appointments to political offices). Before then, the security folks supposedly conduct a background check (now let's not talk about the quality of that). The name is then sent to the Senate for confirmation. It is a notorious fact how our Senate typically conducts its screening and approval of nominees and boom, you have a misfit like Wigwe as high commissioner/ambassador.

On March 21, I shared on facebook, the report of how the Senate cleared one Mrs. Bristol, described as a career diplomat, to become an ambassador even though she performed abysmally at the Senate screening. I wrote then: "Mrs Bristol was asked to explain the Vienna and Geneva Conventions. All she could say was: “I am confused. I am confused.” Senate President David Mark asked that the Senate should “temper justice with mercy…her case is a case of what we call poor pass.”" I referred to this media report: http://thewillnigeria.com/opinion/7924-THE-AMBASSADOR-WHO-FAILED-ANTHEM-TEST.html. In deed, our Senate had no qualms approving the appointment of a mediocre to represent the country in a foreign land.

I equally shared on facebook, the report in an April 7 newspaper (see http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/03/libya-nigerian-envoy-flees/) that in the height of the crisis in Libya and the attempt to rescue Nigerians there, our ambassador to Libya, Isa Mohammed Aliyu, fled with his family and abandoned the compatriots he was expected to protect. Until now, no sanction has been made and I have heard no official response to that report.

It is now another season of nominations, by the president, of persons for appointment as ministers and ambassadors etc. One prays that all the agencies would live up to their responsibilities. If the security agencies did their jobs well, they would probably have identified Wigwe as a violent husband. But it is also possible that such finding was indeed submitted but the appointing authority still overlooked it. And this happens everywhere with grave consequences, much like the IMF overlooked the known weaknesses of its boss only to find itself in the current international mess.

But by far the most ridiculous process by a state institution in this matter of political appointment in Nigeria is that of Senate screening. Our Senate has since come up with the very insulting practice/convention of asking certain persons who appear before it for confirmation to merely 'take a bow' before it and go. They do this whenever a former federal legislator appears before it for screening. So, if the legislator was a 'legislooter' (now please don't drag me into the controversy of whom among the other, confirming legislators has the audacity to cast the first stone) or even a paedophile (like the one who married a 14-year-old girl) he would be asked to take a bow and be certified good to go.

I hope the above answers the question of how we end up with such Primitive persons In Government or (PIG).