Hunger for Employment
Hunger for Employment grew in the two men. Their specific wish was for their country’s Civil Service to swallow them as staff. It was high time they changed their picture as permanent members of The Labour Market or Helpless Waiters for God’s Miracle in The Job Circle. University Degree the two had already acquired plus the relevant educational training to apply for a teaching appointment with their State’s Secondary Education Management Board. Nothing is demanding in penning down a concise application letter to that effect: concise – Yes - but bearing all the needed information The Board would ask of them in order to process their applications and humor them with a positive reply. No doubt. The Board would want them to further enclose the photocopies of their credentials between their First School Leaving Certificate and University’s besides Statutory Declaration of Age and Certificate of Identification. All along, the personal files of the two gentlemen were intact. From where the files had been tucked away, they picked them up and breezed out of their homes in quest of a convenient stop at which they could stand and secure a commuter bus to The Board. As Late as 11:00am and it was supposed to be The Last Day of Submission of Written Applications, there were practically no such vehicle to convey them to The Board while the one or two cabs that stopped or slowed down to consider their cases were charging greedy prices.
“You see what I mean!” the one called Jasper flung at Carlos. “This job we are scouting for is something of value”
“Hence, it doesn’t want to come easy,” Carlos tried to finish off for him but on a contemptuous note. Carlos had never thought Teaching a rewarding profession. But for his preoccupation with other pressing thoughts he would have told Jasper that their delay in securing a bus to The Board could also mean that they needed not have bothered to chase after the same job.
He was the same Carlos who could not have been shortlisted five years ago for their country’s linked with-fun-and-opportunity National Youth Service, for having already hit Thirty Years! Unwilling to accept Fate, Carlos had gone to the nearest Magistrate Court and sworn An Affidavit to the effect that he was Twenty-Five Years. A bold reduction of his exact age by A Cool Five Years.
Guess the next! Carlos’ NYSC Call-Up Letter arrived in a space of three weeks ordering him to report like other graduates at Isele-Uku Orientation Camp for Corps posted to Delta State.
A successful clever handing of Age Disability! Simply, it was history how Carlos had squandered pleasure at the camp and later at NNPC Warri his luckily-clinched Oil Company of Primary Assignment. It was truly a Merry-Go-Round and at its tail-end A Fierce Celebration of the remaining weeks of his Service Year after Worldly Fashion!
Certainly, no one save A Futurologist would have sniffed The Ugly Tomorrow that lay in wait for Celebrant Carlos in connection with the affidavit stuff.
The Adventurer he was, Carlos, the following year, delved into Politics and almost as soon began to nurse A Councillorship Dream in a much favoured political party in their zone. When The Party’s Primaries came, Carlos, as an aspirant, borrowed heavily from enthusiastic money lenders to fund his campaign, a great deal of it going into lobbying of the people that mattered most in the party.
“No! This New-Comer is better-off as A Back Bencher he should be!” That was Carlos’ rival sensing that he would sweep all the votes in the approaching elections, if they did not stop him. They started dusting his files - a painstaking scrutiny of his Financial, Moral, Social, Medical, and Academic Records. Victoriously, they stumbled at last on the career-wrecking information that he had finished His National Youth Service only two years ago at the purported age of Twenty-Six and consequently should have no business aspiring for a political office whose minimum age requirement is Thirty.
Quick like lightning, Carlos’ Adversaries copied their party’s chairman for the Local Government on the subject as well as petitioned him at the higher level; in their briefs making an elaborate case against his eligibility to contest for Councillorship and or for that matter near The Polls except as a voter. His hands tied up, The Sympathetic Chairman of The Party had to send Carlos a strong-worded letter asking him to withdraw, forth with, from The Primaries as well as prepare for a law suit for having lied to their party about his age…
It became time for The World around Carlos to start spinning faster than a cone, sweat breaking out on his forehead and he, minutes on end, enveloped in shock!
Journey Luck was to surface at The Bus Stop where Jasper and Carlos had had to wait like fools, time, 1:59am! Scrambled they had to with others into The Fourteen-Sitter Mitsubishi whose driver had promised them that he would traverse The Board in less than an hour and a half. And traverse The Board he did in less than ninety minutes. There at The Board, Jasper and Carlos met a near surging crow comprised of her staff Proper, Contracted Workers, Invited Teachers and Co-applicants, on the last of these relying to complete their own applications.
A good four months went into the processing of their applications and documents. However they were successful, saw their names on The Board’s Notices, picked up their Letters of Appointment and joined the other successful entrants in a long exercise of form-filling and submission of documents for the creation of individual files at The Board’s Office Record.
In a space of fifteen years, Carlos had forgotten his excitement from success at The Board after screening. He could hardly remember the rich snacks he had shared with Jasper in a nearby restaurant, because they were doubly sure of a monthly crediting of their bank account with Fifty Grand. Carlos had become dog-tired of Chalk and was itching to once again try the Loud Speaker of Politics, this time in their State’s, House of Reps!
An old fancy for Politicking bursting anew, and daring him to repress it if he could!
“But how do you propose to sail to the end as winner with all these Dare-Devil Rivals?” Jasper had deigned to ask Carlos.
“Foolish Question!” retorted Carlos but as quickly explaining what he had meant, “Of course, the same thing others had done but in a superior way!”
By this Carlos meant, as Jasper was to find out, clever sustained bribery of The Electorate followed by a daring massive rigging of The Election at The Polls! Jasper could only entreat Carlos to exercise patience for another Ten Years or so in order that his gratuity with pensions upon resignation would be bulkier.
“Then, you seriously think that I need it” Carlos retuned with a scowl.
“And why wouldn’t you?” challenged a half-bamboozled Jasper. “A package which dangles a couple of millions ought to be desired by a Living Soul”
And-Alas- I’m A Dead One!” Carlos monstrous imagination told him to mumble.
In the end, Jasper’s counsel went unheeded. Carlos jettisoned his Teaching Job, pulled out of the Civil Service and plunged anew into Politics.
Unfortunately, he was unable to hit the next person with either charisma or ideas and kept meeting with not funny hindrances, as he tried to rewrite his Political Story. His primary source of sustenance turned out to be his monthly pensions plus the lump sum he had received upon resignation as gratuity.
But these were nothing, when compared to Jasper’s after Thirty-Five Years of Service…
Goodness Heavens! An amount worth dying for, if not worth killing another for!
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