A GOOD CITIZEN OF NIGERIA VISITS THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

MIND BOGGLING REVELATIONS (READ TO THE END)

Sometimes around 2014, I went to an Access Bank branch Around Ade-Alu, Lagos to buy PostUme form for someone, and in the process of waiting, one of their officials came to beg me to register my BVN with them.

I obliged, and that was the beginning of my problem.

I mean, that day, I would have preferred to stay home and settled the fight between my street's village people and the community transformer - both of them no dey see eye to eye.

I did the BVN and I was told I will be sent a code which I will use to verify the success of the registration.

Before I got home, I lost my phone. And naive me, I was always changing Sims the way King Solomon changes women.

I waited till I got a new phone before I tried reactivating my account, and to cut the yeye story short, since 2014 till now, I am still battling to have an account. The Skye Bank account and the funds in it was said to be dormant when I finally got my BVN this year.

Most of it was my fault. When you get to ade alu,There are 4 banks in close proximity. Skye, Wema, Access and Zenith at the other side of the road. I know I have short term memory but registering for BVN at Access, then going to Wema to complain is a really low blow to my intellect.

For a year, I kept shuffling GT bank where I tried to open another account and Wema bank, where I thought I did my BVN. I later found out I didn't register at Wema, I did it an access, the bank very close to Wema. Okay - I am stupid. Fine. Don't rub it in.

If not for a good Samaritan who volunteered to help me look for it, and, fortunately that my yeye cap that year (I used a cap in the biometric capture then and the day I went to claim BVN).
And when I thought my woes were over, my village people said

"iyalaya Iya anybody... Anybody"

I went to GT bank to reactivate my account, I took the normal Nepa bill and Voters card, a 2011 version.

The woman in charge told me to go depose to an affidavit in effect of the reorganization of my name. I went to get the affidavit done, took it there after hours of lining up only for me to be told I needed to sign another affidavit so my name can correspond with the one on the bank account.

The spoiler came when she said I would need a national ID Card and not the voters card. I was just scattered and I intended to shut down banking operation.

I mean, I haven't seen that high level of lack of intelligence and professional knowledge of the modus operandi of an institution being exhibited by an official before.

Two bank officials were telling me two different tales. I let them know that they were inexperienced.
Who will pay for the first affidavit I signed? They were trying to justify their actions but I wouldn't leave until they tendered a sincere apology.

That was how the unintended journey to get a national ID card which I had made up my mind to have nothing to do with started.

The first day, I went to the LG at exactly 10.00am and I couldn't even get a number as the crowd were massive. I thought there was a Marlian concert and I almost shouted

"Control the Crowd, Marlians, fall in, Non Marlians, Bleep off."

A boy told me that if I wanted to get this thing done, I should come 3am in the midnight. I thought it was a joke, until I got there at 4.30am in the middle of the night and I was number 84.

The main reason for the crowd is the stupid, ineffective policy the FG was planning on introducing - mandating a National ID card for any student that wants to write jamb. I really have no idea why a 14 year old boy would need an ID card to write jamb.

And believe me, just like the case of the closure of the Nigerian Border, this was poorly conceived. When you make a policy that requires more hands, you employ more corpers, bring in more laptops and printers to effect fast registration. But it was only one rude, egoistic boy who presided over the affairs of thousands of registers.

I was informed by someone at the LG to find a place close to that place, to crash in the evening so by 1'0 clock, I would have lined up as the no 1 on the queue. I had no choice, but to go there in the evening as said. I started to look for where to crash as open eye guy wey I be.

I went to the head slammers and they rejected me, then I went to the barefooters and they also did the same. And in this case, the mosque and Cele church were the closest in proximity. I had to look for a domain to crash.

When I got out around 1.25am after an heavy rain, I met someone at the LG entrance who had been there since 12. I had to go for number 4 and I left that shit hole around 4.pm despite having been there since the previous day.

These are my observations.

1. Do you know people are buying the National ID Card? Yes, people who do not want to join the queue will pay #2000 to an official, who will forward your details to alausa ikeja, you can get your national ID card the next day, no stress at all. Easy money, yes. We blame government but we are the rot. Imagine paying for NATIONAL ID Card.

2. I got number 4, truly, but can you believe that after number 5 who came with number 1, the next person who came got number 22. Can't you see that God is a wonderful God... Bleep it, it wasn't God, the LG gate man and officials were selling numbers. You can come anytime, buy numbers, go to your house and sleep, then when it's almost 8 when the registration will start, you pop out of nowhere and say you are number so, so and so. It was that simple.

3. They were doing it openly, it wasn't hidden. Despite the plea of the boy doing the registration that no one should pay a dime to anyone, people were buying numbers in large quantity.

4. Do you know they were threatening people who tried to voice our about that despicable practice. I mean, I slept outside with a 13 year old boy, in the cold, risking theft and kidnapping, and one over bloated Fat Ma will come around 8am and stay many miles ahead of me on the queue. Once you tried to complain, they will tell you that if you talk to much, they will make sure you don't get an ID Card, no matter where you go, all they need is your name. Infact during the eventualities of the brouhaha, the boy said he was registering only 17 people when people started causing a ruckus and wanted the right thing done, and believe me, he only did for 1-17, obviously bought while those who went through the right processes (about 150 people) went home as it ended in tears.

5. Of course there are people trying to do the right thing, like an obviously drunk official who was cursing both the officials and those registering. No one took him serious, he looked drunk, unkempt, wasted and he kept calling the LG " my company." and yes, there is the Oga Patapata, an Ibo woman who happens to be a no nonsense woman. The problem is, the officials were against her and she was really over doing it. You find a good person and they have an obviously gigantic Coma - pheew. She was doing it in such a way that, even those that came to register despised her.

6. They didn't even have ordinary paper to print the national ID Card, they wrote my ID Code On a sheet of paper and I had to take that paper to Alausa, Ikeja to print the original, I don't know what to expect from there.
If you can see this, please help us share, let people who are serious about their ID Card go straight to Alausa Ikeja where there is an obvious rot.

The country is in tatters and no one is ready to do the right thing. Well, I pray this gets to those who needs to see it. Shalom.

Ogundimu Samuel Olajide.