Immigration and Correctional Service Bosses Get More Time, Because Retirement Is Apparently a Rumour

n Nigeria, the only thing with a guaranteed long stay is now a government job.

President Tinubu has extended the tenures of the heads of the Immigration and Correctional Services. In other words, two offices that deal with people who cannot leave and people who cannot come in have just been told, “You, my dear, may stay.”

Let us pause and appreciate the poetry. Immigration decides who gets to stay in a country and for how long. Correctional Service is where people stay for a very long time without asking for it. And now the bosses of both have received a stay of their own. Nobody got a visa interview. Nobody was asked for proof of funds. Nobody was told to come back next week with a bigger bank statement. Very smooth.

Now, you might ask, “Why extend tenure?” Somebody will say “continuity.” Somebody else will say “stability.” A third person will say, “The country is at a critical stage.” In Nigeria, the country has been at a critical stage since 1960. It is the longest critical stage in medical history.

Meanwhile, spare a thought for the officers below. Take Musa, a man we invented but whom you definitely know. Musa joined the service twenty-two years ago with big dreams of rising to the top. He has now reached the age where his dream is to see the top move one inch. He looks at the chair, the chair looks at him, and the chair says, “Not yet, Musa. Not yet.”

Retirement, we are now informed, is not a date. It is a mood. You check the calendar, you see the retirement date, and then you check the news to confirm that the person at the top has decided to continue. The rest of us who retire on time are simply beginners.

Supporters will say experience matters, and they are right. If you have spent years at a job, you must know where everything is. For example, the passport booklets, the shortage of the booklets, and the explanation for the shortage of the booklets.

Critics will say a tenure is a period, not a lifestyle. But this is Nigeria. We already have a word for extending a good thing past its date. We call it “one more year.” Then another one more year. Then, somehow, it is a tradition.

Anyway, congratulations to the bosses. May your extension be long, your chair be comfortable, and your phone never ring with the words, “Sir, someone is asking about your replacement.”