Hypocrisy and the European refugee crisis

A humanitarian crisis is enveloping Europe. – Ayah, what a pity? – Hear him! You have no milk of human kindness? – Men don’t produce milk; they follow the fura da nono where it sells or buy at the grocery store. – This is not about milk. Have you been watching television lately? – Has […]

A humanitarian crisis is enveloping Europe.
– Ayah, what a pity?
– Hear him! You have no milk of human kindness?
– Men don’t produce milk; they follow the fura da nono where it sells or buy at the grocery store.
– This is not about milk. Have you been watching television lately?
– Has television carried good news lately?
–  I keep telling you that reporters don’t manufacture news.
– My question was just to help you answer yours.
– How?
– Your obsession with the politics of 100 days shifts your attention away from the humanitarian crisis involving thousands of people escaping the pogrom in Syria, Iraq and Yemen?
– Actually I am very worried.
– Yes! I was getting worried that you were not worried.
– I am worried about global hypocrisy that gags a child, and then beats it mercilessly to prevent it from crying. I also pity the dark skinned settlers in Europe when the light skinned refugees settle in. Its going to be a resurgent social dynamic in which they lose, as always.
– What do you mean?
– This humanitarian crisis was preventable, and even now that its here, it can be remedied if we stop playing the ostrich with it.
– Really?
– Yes, it’s fallout of the needless invasion of Iraq by the duo of George W Bush and Tony Blair leading the coalition of the willing and the cajoled?
– Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator gassing Kurds and carrying out pogroms within his domain.
–    How many people did he kill in total? How many died as a result of the war? How many lives are blighted by the war. By the way did Bush and Blair listen to the massive demonstrations against their war based on sexed up dossier?
– Well, they had parliamentary approval for their actions.
– In that case, let’s release Bosco Ntaganda and Laurent Gbagbo; cancel the international arrest warrant on Al-Bashir, apologise and pay compensation to Charles Taylor.
– Ah-ah, what kind of logic is that? How does that affect the European refugee crisis?
– The individuals mentioned above were acting as ‘government’ or on the orders of established rules and regulations. If they were Bush or Blair, they would be roaming free and even enjoying international clout and recognition. This is double standard.
– I don’t agree with you.
– You won’t. Every action causes a reaction of sorts. The humanitarian crisis is as a result of the stupid decisions of two warmongers pulling the world to a needless war in Iraq without a successive strategy. The audacity of there action spurred and the helplessness of voices of reason encouraged them to take out Muammar Gadaffi who was a rascal coming back to his senses and even atoning for committed atrocities.
– He was an evil man.
– An evil man taken down by worse evil men. No thought for the ripple effects of their actions on regional and global peace and cohesion. Serial killers have been taken out to pave the way for mass murderers. Tell me, what have they done to contain the humongous evil of the so-called Islamic State or ISIL?
– Well, they are studying the ISIL issue.
– Studying it while people are dying. Global peace would continue to elude us as long as we spend more researching and making weapons of mass destruction than we do growing apples, bananas and yams which feed the global poor.
– Well…
– They indiscriminately dumped their old weapons and tested new ones, they are researching and stockpiling new ones, making money for big capital which sustains global power with gains from the arms trade. Tell me, when did Bashar al-Assad become a bad boy to the West? He schooled in London, married a half-Briton, wears zany suits and speaks impeccable English.
– Huum.
– They want him out, even if it meant destroying one of the world’s oldest states and its civilization and at the risk of leaving the flanks open for a monster worse than Hitler – ISIL? ISIL, a murderous group that roasts its victims alive, rapes women and children, endorses sexual and physical slavery and anything against human conscience and above all threatens global peace?
– I don’t have answers to these questions.
– Well, you should not join the hypocrites shedding crocodile tears. Do you know how many Africans have died crossing the desert to escape grinding poverty at home? Or those marooned trying to cross the Mediterranean from a lawless Libya and equally spineless human traffickers?
– No count.
– Why is it so difficult to go back and speak Assad, negotiate his exit from power, grow and nurture democracy? How is Assad more a threat than the geriatric house of Saud or the rulers of Oman or UAE who are ‘friends’ of the West? It’s all crocodile tears.
– Those countries lifted no fingers to help.
– They know they’re next. The death that kills your mates speaks to you in parables. It’s a Western problem, hope they find a solution or be engulfed by it.
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I write bitterly to express my disappointment with the Friday Column of Adamu Adamu in Daily Trust. Bitterly because I just realized lately that Adamu and myself have being writing and rejoining on the issue of Computer Based Test under the caption Schools of Tamba without me knowing what Tamba is all about. Could it be a word describing concepts in opposite meaning or derogating policies in a comic way?

This thought became imperative because I could not really understand what my senior colleague in media business was actually trying to explain in the latest column of Friday, 28th August, 2015 “School of Tamba III”.

In trying to win the debate on why the Board should wait for ages before attempting to conduct CBT, Adamu alleged that CBT … “would also not stop the advance released of question papers to schools or to paying students by staffers of JAMB for reasons of financial inducement, nepotism, statist-patriotism  or indeed, for any reason.” He went further to say that, “Nor would it have stopped the leakage of question papers by staffers of printing press or other pre-exam day custodians of the papers; or prevented other unauthorized persons having fore-knowledge of examination questions by way of breaching the security-packaging of question paper packets; or the act of receiving and giving assistance to candidates in the examination hall by persons within and outside it.

The above assertions clearly demonstrate the fact that Adamu does not know the subject he has chosen to write about and he equally did not do the basic findings on the concepts of Computer Based Test. If he had asked questions, he would have known that Computer Based Test is everything except those things he had labored so hard to associate CBT with. There is a big difference between Computer Based Test and Paper Pencil Test, while CBT is paperless; PPT has all the characteristics mentioned by Adamu. It will interest Nigerians to know that it was because of so many irregularities and the ones mentioned by Adamu that the Board introduced the CBT. And to the credit of CBT, all these irregularities are history.

For the purpose of educating Adamu and so many of his co-travelers who may not have sufficient understanding of what the Board’s CBT is all about, let me state the process and procedures of conducting the CBT.

First the conduct of CBT eliminates all processes involving papers and pen etc. The system is entirely deplored on a computer. No question paper, no custodian, no printing papers, no packaging and above all, no copying from each other as questions are personalized in such a way that two candidates writing English sitting side-by-side will be answering different questions but calibrated to the same standard.

The CBT is administered in such a way that candidates are allocated to centres based on the capacity of the centres and the number of days for the examination. Each state of the Federation especially the Adamawa State which Adamu has consistently referred to has more than three (3) centres. These centres have adequately taken care of the number of candidates in such states. And the system does not necessarily require each candidate having a personalized computer.

On the examination day, questions are deplored from the Headquarters of the Board in Bwari to all our centres all over the world within three (3) minutes all encrypted and at the centres the questions are sent to the terminals and only readable when candidates key in their personalized registration numbers.

The Board’s CBT is not deplored through internet but via the Local Area Network (LAN) so not susceptible to hacking. This is a system that has proved all inclusive solution as it addresses the challenges of public examination and offers a bright prospect for the development of education in Nigeria. It will be disastrous if the arrogance of our “intellectuals” does not allow them to see their ignorance. What you don’t know you ask question and if you are still in doubt you leave out. Let us stop leaving in the past. The thought that Nigeria is still in the primitive stage of development is retrogressive.

In any case university education is intended to bring out the best so that the  society will be better. This product should be able to compete with anybody globally. How ready were we for the kind of election INEC introduced to us? But today we are all happy that INEC gave us a system we can all boast of.

It’s very unfortunate that most of us specialize in stressing problem and challenges. They dwell much on why it’s not possible and seeing no possibility in anything good. They want us to remain where we are until eternity.   
Fabian Benjamin, Head Information [email protected] <http://webmail.dailytrust.com/cpsess3567507123/3rdparty/squirrelmail/src/compose.php?send_to=fabbenjamin%40gmail.com>