Our systemic nepotism and corruption have favoured all of us in ways we may never want to admit in public. It's okay when your father's friends offer you a place in their private enterprises, citing trust as the criterion for your choice.

But this criterion is what's called "nepotism" in recruitments by a public agency, which has established rules, mode of employment and with fractional titles for the recruited based on their areas of specialisation or qualification.

A few weeks ago, I was at a benefactor's office - of course you need benefactors and "contracts" to afford this city lol - and we got to talking about a certain office and how the then occupant had been rubbishing the office and deemed ineffective by both his principal and the public.

Suddenly, he asked me to stop talking and then had his phone set to Loudspeaker mode. "I think I've found you the perfect replacement for X," he said to the phone . And then he mentioned my name.


"Yaron nan da taurin kai," the recipient said, that I was recalcitrant. I knew the voice at once. And then, after a few more words of dispiriting psychoanalysis, he asked the caller whether he had spoken to me and, if not, whether I would be ready to resume immediately.

Even though my potential boss said some unkind things about me, I didn't express my excitement for being known or noticed by such a monstrously famous "man of timber and calibre."

Unfortunately, I wasn't even "available" for the engagement and recommendation wasn't even an option, but I was emphatic and polite in rejecting it.

The scenario paints a cultural image of nepotism and how easy and convenient it is for us to disregard the rules of public establishments, in contracting, recruitments and even political appointments.

As long as we keep quiet, such underground dealings among relatives and friends, which have long been an aspect of our life and has destroyed us, won't stop.

It's not possible to stop nepotism in political appointments, but placements in public service should be closely supervised and the President can't pretend that he's unaware of these scams and that it's not his responsibility to redeem the stinking rots or reverse the recruitments.