The application portal was finally opened on January fifteenth, four months after they had paid a total sum of thirty thousand to A. Latif so that he’ll help them to secure a solid slot in the Immigration Service.
They applied and were selected. They joined a teaming number of youth(s) at their various districts where the documentation and body selection, as parts of the recruitment process of Immigration Service were being held. They passed those preliminary stages and even had to sit for an aptitude test, which they did.
Their friend, A. Latif, kept updating them that these processes were nothing but mere paper works. “You’ll soon be called for training. Don’t let the crowd scare you. The same thing did Stephenson go through. The officers call it formalities — and eye service. You don’t pay, you won’t wear the uniform. And haven’t you guys paid?” “Yes, we’ve paid.” “So don’t worry at all!”
However, that was the last time they heard from A. Latif. And they didn’t hear from the Immigration Service too. Nobody called them. They had to sit home for another three years of waiting and trying other security services, but nothing really worked for them. The capital that they could have used for something engaging was what they’d given it out.
They would later get to know that their most trusted A. Latif had used their money to pay for his travelling expenses, after news had broken that the Police had ransacked his yam plantation because it’s not only yam they are cultivating there, but they grow weed too. He is now resting in the States. His promise of sending them their money was even too good to be true. They had now taken a part-time job and earning something little for their upkeep.
Today, the Immigration Service has announced the sale of their voucher for potential recruits to buy and have them completed, if they so wish to join the service. They had gone for the voucher for the fourth time, even after trying that of other security services and they hadn’t been taken because they don’t know any big man there or anywhere.
So this time round, as they are working with an immigration officer who claims he works diametrically with the big men themselves. And had promised that their slots would be reserved and wouldn’t have to go through body selection, documentation, aptitude test and even medicals, as soon as they pay twenty five thousand cedi each.
Well, they are on the necks of their parents harassing them to raise the said amount of money for them to capriciously gained admission into the Immigration Service.
What at all are these three gullible graduates, Mubarak, Alhassan and Sherif looking for in this world? Can’t they think, for once, outside the box? The only thing which comes to mind is the saying of Frank Anderson Aidoo: “Experience doesn’t always make you wise; it’s rather an evaluated experience that makes us wise.”
But for that Latif, isn’t he a thief? And how would he even make it to heaven? I mean God’s heaven, not “glass nkoaa”!
Ends!
By Abdul Rahman Odoi