About 60,000 applicants turned up for the National Drug and Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) aptitude test in Lagos which held in the main bowl of the National Stadium.

Most of the large number of applicants that turned up for the test, which was held simultaneously in every state of the federation and the federal capital territory, expressed dismay at the high unemployment rates in the country. “The best thing is to leave this country, I am now convinced,” said Godson Anthony, one of the candidates. “My friends have been telling me all these years but I refused.” He also expressed dismay at the conditions under which he wrote the test. Candidates who came early were lucky to get seats under the covered VIP section of the stadium, while the rest had to sit in the blistering sun.

 Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1e718854-ca97-11df-a860-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=5298f81c-c9f0-11df-b3d6-00144feab49a.html#axzz15IktFPQE

When Britain’s colonial administrators lowered the Union Jack in Lagos on October 1 1960, Nigeria was Africa’s great hope. Its pool of talent, mass of fertile land and newly discovered oil promised economic transformation and a role leading independent Africa on to the global stage.

The same promise lives on 50 years later, having survived civil war, military dictatorship, economic mismanagement and social turmoil.

However, the journey to fulfil it remains tortuous, while the demands of a restless population, at 150m, nearly four times its size at independence, press ever more urgently.