The Nation Newspaper

Category: Campus Life

  • Anger as fire guts campus market

    Fire has gutted some shops at the ultra-modern market of the Federal University of Technology, Minna (FUT MINNA), provoking the anger of students and traders. They are blaming the school fire fighters for not rising to the occasion. MAHMUD ABDULSALAM reports.

    IT was dusk when fire broke out at the ultra-modern market of the Federal University of Technology, Minna (FUT MINNA) in Niger State.

    The fire was said to have been caused by power surge.

    Traders ran helter-skelter in a bid to salvage their goods. The inferno, which lasted for almost two hours, started at 5:30 pm from a shop.

    Eyewitnesses said the fire followed a spark from an overheated change-over circuit in front of Shop Number 7. It was gathered that the owner had closed before the incident. Rescuers used heavy stones and planks to force the shop open in order to put out the inferno.

    Students and other sympathisers joined traders in evacuating goods from shops.

    A student, Razaq Ayomide, said they saw smoke billowing from the shop’s roof.

    He said: “I was inside the hostel mosque close to the market when I heard students screaming for help after the fire started. I ran out and saw several people running towards the market with buckets, sands and detergents. Traders  made frantic efforts to salvage their goods from their shops.”

    Three shops were razed. Seven others were partly burnt.

    Another eyewitness, Safina Ibrahim, a 300-Level student, said the damage would have been more, if not for the students, who fetched water from a nearby reservoir, mixed it with detergents and sands to quell the fire.

    She said the students’ effort prevented the inferno from spreading.

    A woman, simply identified as Mrs Blessing, who sells snacks in the market, said: “The whole market could have been razed if not the timely intervention of students. Many of the traders were helpless; they were seen wailing as they made efforts to evacuate their goods and valuable items from their shops. The thick smoke made everyone to be helpless. It would have been an ugly narrative if the fire was not put out on time.”

    She praised students, who, she said, climbed a scaffold and disconnected wires connecting the shops from the source of electricity.

    An engineering student, Segun Folarin, said students could not watch the campus market on fire without doing anything to salvage the situation.

    He decried the sloppiness of the school firefighters, saying: “We were upset when we learnt that the hostel caretaker, Mr. Wale, was not available to mobilise the school fire fighters. When students put a call to the fire station on campus, we were told their van had no fuel.”

    Some of the affected traders were counting their losses when CAMPUSLIFE visited the scene. Some of the burnt items are a generator, photocopy machines, printers, stabiliser and a desktop computer.

    Reams of A4 papers and an undisclosed amount of cash, stationery,  furniture and cartons of noodles were destroyed.

    Speaking when he visited the scene, Dean of Students’ Affairs (DSA) Prof. Abdulmajeed Ijaiya  described the incident as “unfortunate”. He advised the traders not to allow the incident to dampen their entrepreneurial spirits. He praised students for their “speedy intervention”.

    Ijaiya said: “There is need for traders in the market to be safety-conscious. They need not be reminded to regularly check the state of electrical appliances in their shops in order to prevent this kind of ugly event. Being safety-conscious is to ensure that they don’t overload electrical fuses with all the power-consuming electronics. This will help to mitigate incident such as this. Above all, they must ensure they switch off and disconnect all appliances before closing for business each day.”

    He said the burnt shops would be rebuilt.

    The Students’ Union Government (SUG) president-elect, Mathew Fayoje, expressed regret over the  incident, saying: “This terrible event will definitely traumatise the affected traders. But moving forward, I expect that every trader in the market will be more conscious and report cases of electrical faults to the authorities.”

    He criticised the fire department for what he called “insensitivity and carelessness.”

    A worker, simply identified as Abubakar, who works close to the market, dismissed the students’ claim that no staff member was around during the incident.

    According to him, workers were the first set of responders on the scene.

    The students, he admitted, joined in the efforts to put out the fire.

    Mallam Aminu Adamu, an electrician in the market, said the incident would make the traders to listen to his advice on the use of electrical appliances.

    “Much as visitors to the market will consider the fire as unfortunate, the incident was inevitable. There were countless times traders had been advised to stop overloading their electrical devices with many appliances. When electronics are not switched off when going home, it would result in disaster when there is a power surge. This was what happened in this case. We are glad that no life was lost, but we must not repeat what led to the fire.”

    The affected traders bemoaned their fate when CAMPUSLIFE spoke with them. Most of them expressed anger that the school fire fighters did not respond to distress calls,  wondering what they would say if it was the administrative building.

    “Will they have offered the excuse they gave us if it was the administrative building that was on fire? Their response to our plight showed how incompetent the people working in the fire department are in performing their duty,” a trader said.

    The owner of Shop Number 7,  was in consolable as she counted her loss.

    She said: “I was at home when I received a call that my shop was on fire. By the time I arrived, everything I left in the shop had been burnt completely. I ran a provisions store and a computer business centre. I am more than traumatised by the disaster. I cannot quantify the worth of the goods and machines burnt in my shop. What can I do than to accept my fate?”

    A student, Isa Adeiza, asked management to establish an Accident Response Unit close to the market.

    According to him, management’s effort to address infrastructure would be worthwhile if safety of lives and properties is guaranteed.

    A student, Aisha Suleiman, asked that the  traders be compensated. She urged management to investigate the cause of the fire and also renovate the destroyed shops.

    She added that security officers, hostel staff and the  firefighters should be trained to provide emergency response during disasters.

    A student, who simply gave her name as Sandra, urged the shop owners to avoid illegal electrical connections to prevent a recurrence.

    She said: “There should be periodic maintenance of faulty electrical gadget in the market. Naked wires and faulty change-over boxes should be replaced. It is not enough to ask the traders to be safety-conscious. There shouldn’t be laxity on the part of those who are saddled with emergency response duty.”

  • Group engages students on tolerance, peace

    Students of the University of Abuja (UNIABUJA) gathered at the left wing of ETF Building to share ideas on how to make next year’s general elections peaceful. It was at a seminar organised by Global African Christians for Liberty Initiative (GACLI) – a non-profit organisation working with young people to promote tolerance.

    Speaking on Tolerance and peace in view of the 2019 elections, GACLI President, Bishop Chukwuemeka Ezeugo, emphasised the importance of tolerance to creating a peaceful society, urging Nigerians to accept the differences in language, ethnicity and religions which he described as “God’s wish”.

    If the general election must be peaceful, Bishop Ezeugo said young people must always share and promote message of tolerance in their engagement with people who hold different views and opinions. He hailed the participants for making to get their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and admonished them not to vote along religious or tribal lines.

    He said: “As youths, we have the power to make a change. We may not be happy with how things are turning out in the country, but we must use our number to create future we desire. We must avoid voting for politicians because they are from our states, or because we practise the same religion. We should rather look at the policies they plan to implement in our country.”

    Bishop Ezeugo encouraged participants to be tolerant of one another, noting that “an eye for an eye” would only create a society that would not be inhabitable for a living.

    “Our diversity is what makes us who we are,” he said, adding: “Tolerance would help us to live without crisis, be it political, religious, tribal or otherwise.”

    The youthful clergyman pointed out that it was only through tolerance people could learn from one another’s culture, traditions and ideologies, which, he said, would facilitate understanding and foster social interactions free from conflict.

    He called for a separation between religion and politics, stating that religion should be personal conviction, while politics should be about the use of state power to govern.

    Spiritualism, he said, should have nothing to do with physical nature of politics, saying no religion should be used to determine government’s policies in a multi-religious society.

    He drew an instance from the situation in Myanmar, where the Rohingya tribe, the country’s Muslim minority population, is being persecuted by the predominantly Buddhist majority. Bishop Ezeugo said he believed the religious leanings of a country’s leader should not be reflected on his public policies.

    Driving conversation on Why Africa is poor, a Kenyan freedom advocate, Miss Linda Kavuka, engaged the participants on why societies in Africa should create their growths through free markets capitalism, which she said remain the better alternative to the socialist system in many countries.

    In the interactive session, a section of the participants believed Africa is not poor because of the abundance of natural resources, while others believed that lack of good leadership was the reason for poverty on the continent.

    Some participants were of the opinion that bad leadership gave rise to corruption and embezzlement of public funds that could be invested in the development.

    But quoting Ghanaian Economist, Prof George Ayittey, Miss Kavuka said Africa was poor because governments kept depending on aid from the West and, now, from China. At the end of the discussion, the participants came to an agreement that Africa did not need more aid that could plunge the continent into debts, but needed accountable leadership that will respect the rule of law, equality before the law, human rights, tolerance and peace.

    Emmanuel Oche of the Department of Political Science, urged the participants to live in peace with people of different backgrounds wherever they find themselves.

    He said societies could achieve prosperity when there is peace. To achieve the peace, he said spreading message of tolerance remained the key.

  • Government’s irrational ban of codeine syrup

    Let us assume that the Federal Government places a ban on the eating of beef (cow meat), just as it banned the use of codeine recently. Let us assume the news is made known during a media chat with the Minister for Agriculture, who says that cows have been found as the major cause of conflict between the herdsmen and farmers in every part of the country.

    Let’s assume the minister goes on to stress the importance of eating chicken and goat meat, and advises citizens to avoid eating beef as defaulters will be made to face the wrath of the law. How could we have expected beef traders to react to this announcement?

    Well, the same way the traders of pharmaceutical products expressed their fears in the wake of the ban on codeine would be the same way the traders of beef would express their displeasure over the government’s decision.

    Codeine has not killed half the number of persons killed in the herdsmen-farmer crisis. Let us also assume the government places ban on the sale of alcoholic products, because most alcoholic drink consumers are abusive. We have seen them abusing their wives and daughters after consuming alcohol. Some people even drink alcohol before going to their offices and this leads to their low productivity at work.

    Going by the abuse of alcohol, has the government banned alcoholic drinks’ consumption since it cares for the health of the citizens and does not want them to harm themselves in anyway?

    The Federal Government has been acting like it is capable of making a better choice for us. We witness abuse of alcohol daily, but the government has not deemed it fit to ban the sale of alcoholic drinks. The other day, news filtered in that a drunken father raped his daughter. But, the government did not come out to say ‘we cannot allow these kinds of actions to continue in our society’. Neither did they say anyone caught selling and consuming alcoholic products will face the wrath of the law.

    We all seem to flow well with the above narratives because the government derives huge profits from the breweries.

    In the face of corruption, the government seems to lose the ability to make an informed decision. And instead of finding a lasting solution, we behave like the ostrich and look for the easy way out. We can see how ridiculous the above actions would be if they are carried out. But, we witnessed arbitrariness in the case of codeine abuse; maybe so the world will think the government of Nigeria is being proactive and act very fast to ‘curb’ the abuse of codeine.

    Codeine has not wrecked half the lives, and destroyed properties which alcohol or the herdsmen have ruined. Codeine is an active drug used in the treatment of a dry cough and cough non-responsive to other expectorating agents. It is classified as a Prescription Only Medicine (POM).

    It should be dispensed only with a prescription. But, because of weak regulation in Nigeria, many pharmacies do not follow this rule. The drug has a large margin of profit; hence it is sometimes sold without a prescription.

    The AAP News and Journals Gateway published: “In adults, codeine and dextromethorphan have been shown to suppress both artificially induced and disease-related cough, mainly through central nervous system mechanisms. A linear relationship has been shown to exist between a codeine dosage in the range of 7.5 to 60 mg/d and a decrease in the frequency of chronic cough.”

    Cough syrups containing codeine can make people get high, giving them some false confidence just like what alcohol does. And it is abused just like alcohol is daily abused. But when alcohol is abused, the individual is blamed, when codeine is abused, the pharmacist is accused, instead of the abuser.

    The ban of codeine will not stop its abuse; codeine will still be available, but only sold on the black market. Abusers will get it, but at a higher cost. They will become more desperate to get this drug and can do worse for it than before.

    Instead of banning, we should learn to make our institutions work.We should learn to take up our regulatory bodies on their negligence. Instead of   banning codeine, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) should be queried.

    NAFDAC should be blamed for not properly monitoring the production of the syrup, while PCN should take the blame for its negligence in overseeing the pharmacies. What should have been done would be to prosecute those who sold the drugs without a prescription and withdraw or suspend their license. Then, every pharmacist will consider either doing what is right or facing the risk of losing his hard-earned licence.

    Let’s face the facts, almost every drug is abused, tramadol, diazepam, pentazocine and you name it. Should then be a ban on these drugs because they are abused? There is always a better way of doing things, and it is never to ban the drug. The solution is to tighten regulations and build up proper counseling. This is the more reason there is a need for consultant pharmacist. Pharmacists need to be allowed to use their skill in the hospital and bring a stop to drug abuse. Codeine is for cough. Let’s leave it like that, if anyone has an addiction, he should get a therapist.

    • Ezekiel is a young pharmacist graduated from University of Benin

  • Alumnus organises skills workshop for students

    An alumnus of the Department of Microbiology of the Abia State University, Uturu (ABSU), Chimezie Nwakire, has organised a career development training to empower final year students with skills and techniques that can aid their efforts to excel in their chosen career.

    The training with the theme: The science of microbiology, was aimed at helping the participants to activate their career path and imbibe core values that would help them transform into professionals.

    The participants were taken through modern techniques in the field of microbiology, such as gram staining, media preparation, good laboratory practice, quality assurance, critical scientific writing, experimental design, method development and validation. There was also practical training on employability skills, including speech presentation, curriculum vitae designing and cover letter writing, utilising the LinkedIn social media network and job hunting skills.

    In his remarks, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Uche Ikonne, represented by Director of Research and Publications, Prof Victor Nwaugo, described Chimezie as one of the alumni in whom the school took pride.

    He said Chimezie’s return to his alma mater attested to the quality training he received as a student, urging other alumni of the school emulate the gesture.

    According to Chimezie, the programme was inspired by the need to mentor students and guide them on opportunities available in microbiology profession.

    He said: “I spent four years here and I believe there is no better place to start this career training other than where my career was defined. We were made to believe that there is no future in microbiology, but that is a big lie. There are loads and loads of opportunities out there for people willing to practise in that field. While I was in the United Kingdom, I thought of how and where I could give back. I think initiating this career programme and equipping the department with relevant equipment will inspire students and help them realise their potentials.”

    Chimezie donated four modern textbooks and a Celestron Microscope Kit – a device that can magnify microscopic elements on a computer screen – to the department.

    Receiving the materials on behalf of the department, Dr Hope Okereke, an Associate Professor of Food Microbiology, said: “We are glad to welcome our supportive alumni who got his training here. He has conquered the world and returned to invest in the next generation. The device donated would bring more clarity to research works, and we are highly elated. The entire department is happy about this and we expect other alumni to emulate his kind gesture.”

    Ositadinma Ugbogu, a professor of Applied Microbiology and Director of Institute for Computer Studies, who was part of the training facilitators, said participants were exposed to practical parts of microbiology and how they can pursue careers in the discipline.

    A participant, Constance Enwereji, said: “The workshop was enlightening and helped me in breaking down the opportunities I could get after my first degree. Now, I can say my career path has become clearer. I am ready more than ever before to practise as a microbiologist. I appreciate the department for creating this opportunity for students to learn. I also appreciate Mr Chimezie for consider it necessary to leave to mentor us and donate equipment that can aid our learning in the field.”

  • Colonial mentality in all of us

    Colonial mentality is a form of internal oppression in which the colonised prefer and think highly of the customs, values and beliefs of their colonial masters.” – Nadal, 2011.

     

    Wikipedia defines colonial mentality as the “internalised attitude of ethnic or cultural inferiority felt by a people as a result of colonisation, that is, them being colonised by another group.”

    It is not out of place to state emphatically that most Nigerians, if not all, are white men in black skins, as we have projected ourselves as promoters of the customs, beliefs, lifestyles and conventions of our colonial masters.

    Before I broach the subject matter, let me disclose that I was inspired to write on this topic by two incidents. The first was a fierce argument on the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool, while the other was an embarrassing slavery scene of a Chinese construction company, conveying their black labourers in a manner similar to the slave trade era.

    I watched with keen interest how hardworking Nigerian youths engaged in passionate debate about the Champions League final. While the fans of Real Madrid boasted about the unmatched experience of the Spanish team in the competition; those that comprised supporters of especially English teams pledged their support for Liverpool.

    However, the sympathisers of Liverpool, I perceived, were only in solidarity walk with the team so that the true fans do not walk alone as they tackled almighty Madrid last May. The ones I identified as supporters of Chelsea, Arsenal, and Manchester United pledged their support for Liverpool on the premise that it is an English team.

    “We are loyal to EPL,” one of them said.

    “Really,” I muttered. When did an EPL team become Enugu Rangers or Sunshine Stars of Ibadan to deserve our loyalty?

    I subjected my brain to rigorous exercise and I resolve that, the self-infected colonial mentality seems hereditary – our forefathers had a taste of colonial yoke during the years of colonial rule and the ambience of colonialism has refused to depart successive generations. Despite being granted independence on October 1, 1960, we still project ourselves to be offshoots to world powers like our very own Great Britain, United States of America (USA), France, and others.

    I would not wish to go into political and economic neo-colonialism, a contraption standing against the progress of most African countries, but I shall limit this discourse to deliberate on the traits of colonialism in our society.

    Colonial mentality, as asserted by Wikipedia, is an attitude of ethnic or cultural inferiority that has found its way into our subconscious existence and unashamedly seems to be eroding our traditional culture. I shall soon get to the second incident I witnessed, and readers would agree with me that Fela was right when he said: “dem don release you now, but you never release yourself …”

    Apart from supporting European football teams, do we not also crave for imported goods? Nigerians define class by foreign appearance. They want to know from what country you got your shirts, which foreign company produced your shoes, and which foreign brand sell the smartest suits?

    Our wild appetite for foreign products is legendary. Those in the top echelon of the society join the government in preaching “buy made-in-Nigeria products”, yet they rush to buy foreign products. Isn’t that an attestation to colonial mentality?

    As a man, when assessing a lady, you consider European features to be the standard for beauty; you detest our traditional hairstyles like kolese, kojusoko, ipako-elede, but prefer Ghana weavings, Russian style or Brazilian braids. What has happened to an ‘Omoluabi’ appearance?

    The height of inferiority complex is the use of bleaching cream. Those bleaching their skin prefer the artificial coke and Fanta colour it gives to their natural dark skin. Some of them bleach their skins and turn out to be worst humans.

    Most annoying are those who discriminate against their fellow countrymen in such areas as class, religion and ethnicity. The way Nigerians have personalised and indigenised the foreign religions is amazing; “black folks can tell you about every religion under the sun, but too sacred to talk about their own African gods.”

    Favouring traditional European attires (suits) over our own kembe for formal occasions is an evidence that we are comfortable being subservient to our colonial masters. About two weeks ago, one of my friends, Kenny, was clad in Ankara material and he was being queried by his classmates why he would appear native on a Monday. He wondered if it was in the school regulation not to wear native attires on a Monday. Kenny was being scrutinised as though, he was mentally ill, simply because he dropped the colonial convention.

    About the Chinese construction company that I mentioned earlier, it is pathetic and dehumanising scene which made me feel ashamed of my fatherland.

    Every day, I see Nigerians working with China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) being lumped together like sardine fishes at the back of pick-up vehicles to and from construction sites, while the expatriate contractors are ridden in posh vehicles with tinted glasses and police cover.

    For how long would our graduates be doing menial jobs under foreigners like their fathers did last century, while the expatriates with college certificates get government contracts all in the name of “technical experts?”

    Nigerian leaders are so in awe of expatriates that even in things as mundane as road constructions. Our leaders take pride in being photographed with some second rate foreign contractors. These contractors, I’m sure, are not different from illiterate bricklayers we have here, but the Chinese contractors will be parading themselves as the best professionals in the face of our leaders.

    Colonial mentality has eaten deep our brain and its pervasiveness is easily noticed. We are a people who feel inferior of originality in a bid to glorify foreigners and their concepts. When will Nigerians purge themselves of this colonial mentality?

     

    • Oluwatobi is a Mass communication student, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta.

  • When silence is not golden

    Various atrocities have been rocking our tertiary institutions since the beginning of this year. Some of the atrocities have been exposed, while some have been swept under the carpet by repressive authorities that victimise students. But, the big question to ask ourselves (students) is whether keeping silent in the face of decadence and victimisation is golden.

    I was reading through an article by a fellow campus journalist, who is a student of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife, Kabir Adejumo, in which he highlighted some of the victimisation being meted out to students by managements of some institutions. The victims are our colleagues but none of us seems bold enough to speak up for them.

    The case of sex-for-mark in OAU, Lagos State University (LASU) and University of Lagos (UNILAG) are just a few of the numerous cases that are happening on our campuses day by day. A lot of students have been emotionally beaten to keep quiet when faced with molestations, harassment or victimisation because of the fear of being denied their certificates.

    Let me go straight to the main issue in this piece. The recent suspension and expulsion of students by school managements, especially campus journalists who are doing their work is appalling. School managements are seeing student-journalists and writers as threats to their unlawful acts.

    A final year Law student, Kunle Adebajo, was suspended by the management of the University of Ibadan (UI) over an investigative report that was published by The Guardian in 2016. Being a final year student, Kunle observed the poor facilities in UI’s hostel and saw the need to expose the rot in line with his role as a campus journalist. His action was informed by the need to bring about change and see the fortune of the school’s Halls of Residence change positively, but the reverse was the case. Was he expected to keep silent in the face of such rot?

    Daniel Osula, a student-writer at the Delta State University (DELSU), was expelled for exposing the evil act of his Head of Department. He was a final year student of Engineering. The HOD was said to have demanded money for a project. In addition to that, the HOD had asked everyone in the final year level to contribute a certain amount of money for the project presentation. But of the two times he requested for the money, nothing was done and the money wasn’t traceable.

    Daniel was just one of the few outspoken persons and decided to expose the matter. Fortunately, an anonymous student, who also felt the pain of the extortion, wrote a petition against the HOD and submitted it to the necessary quarters. Daniel, on his own part, only showed his pain on Facebook, which went viral on the Internet.

    He was summoned and expelled for posting the matter on Facebook. Despite being expelled, Daniel received unabated threats from the HOD fingered in the extortion. Was the student expected by the school to keep silent on such issue?

    Another painful incident is the purported suspension of Ijeoma Caleb, who exposed the Students’ Union President over cases of fund diversion. Caleb was the Public Relations Officer of the union and he was in the right position to expose the mismanagement of funds by the union president who forged the General Secretary’s signature to withdraw unauthorised money from the union’s purse. Why should Caleb be suspended for exposing such an evil act? The union president fingered in the sleaze was never suspended for his illegal act neither were his accomplices expelled.

    What ridiculous acts going on in our tertiary institutions. Shall we continue like this? Some school managements are not ready to take to correction. Therefore, anyone who blocks their way will be shown the way out of the school.

    Is this the period to say silence is golden? No, I guess. We hope those who are speaking will continue to speak up. We must resist the threat to keep shut while decadence flourishes in our tertiary institutions.

    Like Kabir pointed out in his article, the world does not celebrate cowards. Let us rise up to mobilise against students victimisations.

     

    • Adesola is a student of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko (AAUA) in Ondo State

  • Revisiting the Needs Assessment report

    Nineteen years ago (1999), Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka clamoured for Nigerian universities to be closed down for a year or two in order to fix the rot in the system. A thorough bred scholar and academic, he had seen the level the system had degenerated thus the call for a shutdown.

    We should bear in mind that even the most casual observer know that things are even worse today than it was back then. Many – scholars, parents, employers and concerned stakeholders – have also called for a state of emergency to be declared in the country’s education sector. Given the decay in Nigeria’s university system, it is not surprising that not until recently, no Nigerian university ranks among the best 1,000 in the world. Only the University of Ibadan is now ranked in the top 1,000.

    Concerned about the state of our varsities following a groundswell of public outcry, the Federal Ministry of Education on November 1 2012 set up the Prof. Mahmood Yakubu-led Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Public Universities. The committee submitted its report to then Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’I in March 2013. The committee’s report revealed that public universities are grossly mismanaged; engage in activities at variance with the National Policy on Education and are lacking in human and material resources. The varsities were accused of being incapable of supplying the nation’s manpower needs and are said to be bogged down by corruption of various kinds while offering education of poor quality, among others.

    For the benefit of readers who may not know, a Needs assessment is a systematic process for determining and addressing needs, or lacuna between status quo and desired conditions or “wants”. The discrepancy between the status quo and desired condition must be measured to appropriately identify what the needs are. The need can be a desire to improve current academic performance or to correct infrastructural deficiency.

    A Needs assessment therefore is a part of planning processes, often used for improvement in individuals, education/training, organizations, or communities. It can refine and improve a product such as training or service a client receives. It can be an effective tool to clarify problems and identify appropriate interventions or solutions. By clearly identifying and isolating the problem, resources can then be channeled towards developing and implementing a feasible and applicable solution. Needs assessments are only effective when they are ends-focused and provide concrete evidence that can be used to determine which of the possible means-to-the-ends are most effective and efficient for achieving the desired results.

    Prior to the setting up of the committee, which was part of the 2009 agreement between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government, a ‘vote of no confidence’ was been passed on our varsities resulting in the country losing billions of naira through education tourism. Recall that ASUU had in 2009 embarked on a four-month strike, and subsequently strikes upward of seven months, that paralysed the entire public universities sector. On October 21, 2009, ASUU and the Federal Government reached a truce by signing an agreement. The fallout of the signed agreement include the approval of about 50 per cent salary increase for the university lecturers, administrative autonomy for the universities, 70 years retirement age for university professors and enhanced funding of the universities.

    To state that there are crises in Nigeria’s education sector; from primary to tertiary would be an understatement as the evidences are there for all to see. What with lack of adequate infrastructure, high rate of school dropout and out-of-school children, mass failures in external secondary school examinations, brain drain of lecturers and now students, perennial industrial actions by various unions in the education sector, etc.

    The 2013 Needs assessment report showed that majority of the universities are grossly understaffed, rely heavily on part-time and visiting lecturers, have under-qualified academics and have no effective staff development programme outside the Tertiary Education Trust Fund intervention and the Presidential First Class Scholarship programme. The report also affirmed that there are 37,504 academics (83 per cent of which are male) in the country’s public universities. This shows that only 17 per cent of academic staffers in public universities are female. That’s food for thought.

    Also revealed in the report is that only about 43 per cent of Nigerian universities teaching staffs have doctorate degrees; instead of 75 per cent of the academics being between senior lecturers and professors, only about 44 per cent are within the bracket. Only seven universities have up to 60 per cent of their teaching staff with PhD qualification. Also, the ratio of teaching staff to students in many universities is 1:100. For instance, it is 1: 363 at the National Open University of Nigeria; 1:122 at the University of Abuja; and 1:144 at the Lagos State University.

    How does the statistics measured in other climes? In Harvard University, it is 1: 4; Massachusetts Institute of Technology- 1:9; and Cambridge-1:3. The report also stated that there is numerically more support than teaching staff in the universities, instead of the other way round. In some universities, it was discovered that the non-teaching staff double, triple or quadruple the teaching staff. With regard to infrastructure, the committee found that physical facilities for teaching and learning in the public universities are inadequate, dilapidated, over-stretched and improvised.

    As we daily clamour for the resuscitation of our comatose industries which we know is critical for sustained job creation, do we have the manpower if this happens? It doesn’t appear so as the report also indicted our varsities in that regard. It says laboratories and workshops equipment as well as consumables are either absent, inadequate or outdated. Kerosene stoves are being used as Bunsen burners in some! Some engineering workshops operate under zinc sheds and trees, and many science-based faculties are running what is referred to as “Dry Lab,” due to lack of reagents and tools to conduct real experiments. The committee also documented that 163 of the 701 physical uncompleted projects it found had been abandoned.

    That is definitely not all as there are still more to come in a nation that wants to be counted among the top 20 economies by 2020 (two years’ time). Take the issue of students’ enrolment; the report revealed that there are a total of 1,252,913 students in the public universities: 85 per cent undergraduates; five per cent sub-degree; three per cent postgraduate diploma; five per cent Master’s and two per cent Ph.D. As against the National Policy on Education that stipulates 60:40 enrolments in favour of science-based programmes, 66.1 per cent of them are studying arts, social sciences, and management and education courses.

    Only 16 per cent of students are studying science and science-education courses; 6.3 per cent, engineering; five per cent, Medicine, while 6.6 are studying Agriculture, Pharmacy and Law. It beats my imagination how the ratio 60:40 science bias enrolment could be achieved given the deplorable state of science laboratories and workshops. It is noteworthy that enrolment continues to be a big issue in our universities.

    There is little doubt that this report makes a very depressing reading and calls our sanity as a nation to question. As I reflected on it again I discovered that mediocrity has dealt us a massive blow than we previously thought. How do we expect to develop when our citadels of higher learning are nothing short of glorified secondary schools? How and when did we descend this low and how do we expect to hold our heads high in the comity of 2st century nations when our graduates are half baked? How in God’s name do we hope to compete in a technologically driven world? Most of our policy makers travel to other countries and institutions to “understudy” their systems, what have they been “understudying” over the years?

    Commentaries and editorials have been written about the ugly state of infrastructure in the public universities; political positions have been taken and general condemnations made; but this is the time to right the wrongs. Let’s revisit the report once again.

  • Students pledge support for Buhari

    A group of students dubbed Buhari Students Support Group has declared its support for the re-election of President Muhammad Buhari in 2019.
     This declaration was made on September 10th in Lagos at a press briefing themed “In Defence of Democracy.”
     “As the 2019 elections clock tricks, we [Buhari Students Support Group] deem it fit to pass a vote of confidence on our dear president, Muhammadu Buhari, given the valance of achievements recorded by his administration and how he has successfully progressed and maintained the state of the nation,” said Dhikrullah Aasim, the leader of the Group and a student of Lagos State University.
    He noted that the emergence of President Buhari in 2015 brought hope to the Nigerian populace, as he has rescued the country from the maladministration of the past tenures, restored the economy and also enhanced national security.
    “Those who diverted public funds are not finding it easy,” Aasim said, adding that Buhari’s administration has also recorded rare feat as insurgency has reduced drastically compared to what was obtained in previous administrations.
    “This administration has secured the return of some chibok girls and their Dapchi counterparts abducted by Boko Haram,” he emphasized.
    Stating reasons why the Buhari Students Support Group was formed, Adelowo Adewale, a student of Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, said: “because President Muhammadu Buhari’s integrity is still very much intact, and he has set a landmark in his fight against corruption among many other things, we students have decided to come together and support his continuity in 2019.”
    A student of Fountain University, Lawal Muhammad, reiterated that the sole aim of the Group is for the re-election of President Buhari. “We are not in support of any party; we’re being straightforward in the support of Buhari,” he said.
     Urging Nigerians to vote Buhari in 2019, Adelakun Tufayl from LASU said, “our PVC is our power; we should get it, and troop out in mass to vote this man of integrity, so that he can continue with his work of change and transformation.”
    Muneer Yaqub

  • The other side of revenge pornography

    There is this innate quality in most men which propels us to assist women whenever they are in distress. It could be seeing a lady with a flat tyre standing helplessly beside her car on the road, a mother with her child wailing or a group of men molesting a lady. The natural instinct is for a real man to rise to the occasion and lend a helping hand. There are many cases where this applies. I came across one recently which necessitates this write up.

    I had just packed my car at a shopping mall and was about to walk in when I saw four young ladies comforting another. Initially, I wanted to ‘mind my business’ and just walk on when my conscience pricked me and I approached them cautiously wanting to know what the issue was. I asked politely: “Is anything the matter?” They exchanged quick glances while trying to size me up. One of them nodded and her colleague handed me a Samsung smartphone. Seeing the perplexed look on my face, she said “look at it sir.”

    I looked at the phone and saw the picture of a nude lady. Again, my perplexed look gave me away. The lady that handed me the phone pointed to the lady crying and said “that’s our friend and that is why she’s crying, we are just trying to console her. There is also a video about her.”

    It turned out that this 19 years old undergraduate of a private university is currently faced with one of the toughest challenges of her very young life. Her nude pictures and video have been uploaded online and has gone viral. By the time they showed me the clip it had recorded over 2,000 hits which was why she was wailing uncontrollably. She kept muttering: “What will I tell my parents when they get to see this?”

    She got to know about it when her friends started calling and berating her for selling herself cheap. Confused, she asked what the matter was. That was when her attention was directed at the pictures and video.

    I choose to write this because I have heard about several cases similar to that of this young lady, and having the ‘opportunity’ of seeing one personally necessitates beaming the searchlight on the issue. It was quite pathetic seeing this lady, who in between sobs, kept wailing “Jide, how can you do this to me, it’s so unfair; where will I hide my head?” For what it was worth, I tried my best to encourage her falling short of asking why she could be this stupid.

    Jide, I was told, was her ex-boyfriend who decided to “punish” her for walking out of their relationship. I was also made to understand that he had promised to “tarnish” her reputation for life. She said she thought he was bluffing and wondered what he could do to tarnish her reputation. With this sinister and wicked move, Jide appeared to have gotten his pound of flesh.

    While holding the phone, calls kept coming in and her friends tried lamely to answer the calls the best way they could. In some instances, the altercations would lead to verbal abuse, both in English and Yoruba. I did the best I could in that circumstance to comfort and counsel them.

    When I got home my mind flashed back to Paris Hilton who had a sex tape leaked by her ex-boyfriend. I remembered Piers Morgan, then of CNN, asking Paris – in the presence of her mother – how she would feel when she eventually becomes a mother and her child sees her sex tapes on the internet. Both could not convincingly answer the question, they only riled at her ex-boyfriend who uploaded it on the internet. The same may apply to the lady I’m writing about today, no doubt.

    I also recollected that of Anita Hogan, but thankfully she has married and moved on with her life. But some may not be that lucky.

    For those who may not know, there is now a new vogue in town among our youths called revenge pornography or e-venge pornography. Revenge porn is sexually explicit material that is publicly shared online without the consent of the individual in question.

    In almost all the instances, it is typically uploaded by former lovers or hackers (In rare instances). The majority of images are mostly “selfies,” which are taken by the subject themselves. The images are often accompanied by personal information, including the victims’ full name, links to Facebook and social media profiles or addresses, which is how bad it is.

    This scenario is fast trending as one of the quickest ways of getting a ‘good pound of the flesh’ from a wronged lover. Unlike other anonymous pornographic materials online, revenge pornography makes the face of the act clear and ensures the name is also known. In some extremely harsh instances, the mobile contact, work details and home address of the pictured person are made available.

    Revenge pornography began garnering international media attention when Hunter Moore launched IsAnyoneUp.com in 2010. The site featured user-submitted pornography, and was one of the first sites that included identifying information, such as the subjects’ names, employers, addresses and links to social networking profiles.

    Since revenge pornography always has women as victims most times, it can also be right to describe it as sexual violence – of a rather crude type – against women with the sole aim to embarrass, humiliate and degrade them sexually, if she is career driven, she may be disgraced professionally. I cannot imagine that professional Nigerian lady that will hold her head high and go to work daily if her sexually explicit materials are circulating widely on the internet.

    The international legal firmament is already witnessing various fireworks to address the weak presence or outright absence of legislation around this. Some of the anti-revenge porn legislations are hoping – in addition to criminalising revenge porn – to also target service providers whenever the actions of their users are misguided.

    Beyond legal frameworks, it raises serious moral issue about how our youths are raised by their parents these days. Why would a young lady – if she really is a lady – occupy her time with taking nude pictures either in front of a guy that is not her husband, or sending it to him online? Why would a young man, on the other hand, decide to ‘punish’ a lady this way without thinking of the long term implications?

    What I take out of this is that mobile – and any technology really – sometimes exposes the dark side of people. To this end, the best defence is caution and deep introspection. A lady from a disciplined and proper home will definitely think twice before exposing her naked pictures to a “friend” because she wants to foster “friendship” with a man. The first lesson a mother worth her salt teaches her daughter is how to be a lady, and a lady is a woman of refined background and upbringing, a woman who behaves politely with dignity and integrity, such a lady will be more interested in the weighty issues of life rather than posting nude pictures or “sexting” with acquaintances.

    The same goes for the fathers as well; they are expected to train their boys to be gentlemen who respect women and give them their expected dues in society and not to treat them as sex toys. Because of the break down in our value system some young men have grown up seeing the denigration of women as the norm, it shouldn’t be. In the West, laws are enacted that protect the rights of women and children simply because some men refuse to grow up and be responsible, this is the singular reason men move out of the home in cases of divorce.

    Beyond the home front, there is the need to criminalise revenge pornography as a means of seeking “revenge” because of the far reaching impact it normally have on the victims. Some of the harm it can cause include psychological harm and mental health problems, anxiety, dent on family name or image,. depression and suicidal thoughts amongst others.

  • Creating prosperous, peaceful Africa

    In the absence of peace, commerce suffers and conflict reigns. This is the case in many African nations, where the number of displaced persons is swelling because of preventable conflicts. How can the region be peaceful? This was the focus of a conference organised by the African Students For Liberty (ASFL) at the University of Ibadan (UI). It was attended by students and young professional from West African countries. OLUWAFEMI OGUNJOBI and HAMMED HAMZAT report.

    The absence of peace leads to two possible outcomes – war and poverty. These two have become a common feature in many communities across the West African sub-region, leaving the governments and the people to grapple with a high poverty index.

    Is there anything that can be done to achieve peace and put the sub-region on the path of prosperity?

    This was the kernel of discussions at the just-concluded West African Regional Conference organised by African Students For Liberty (ASFL).

    The Conference Centre of the University of Ibadan (UI), the venue of the event, was filled to capacity, as participants, comprising young professionals, students and freedom advocates from various countries in West Africa, filed into the hall to chart the course of peace in the sub-region.

    What is the price of peace? Tolerance, says the founder of Global African Christians for Liberty Initiative (GACLI), Bishop Emeka Ezeugo. He charged the participants to promote tolerance as the panacea for peace to reign.

    Tolerance, Bishop Ezeugo said, is the willingness of a people to respect and accept behaviour, creed and way of life different from their own, even when they may not approve of them. The clergyman, who spoke on Tolerance, religion and politics, said the ability of a people to understand the world from other people’s point of view and learning from their experience would reduce friction and conflict.

    He said: “Humanity is one tribe before the Supreme Creator. But, our inability to accept differences in our religions, ethnicity and political creeds has led to violence and divisions among us, which results in poverty. Our ability to deal with something that is unpleasant or annoying to us, and to continue to co-exist together despite differences in our ways of life and conditions will lead to peace and prosperity.”

    The clergyman urged the participants to work for peace, noting that tolerance would give people an opportunity to learn from one another. A human society that embraces intolerance, he said, is doomed, adding that the people in such society would have their liberty and freedom threatened.

    He said: “A society flourishes when tolerance is practised as a virtue. Tolerance is key to promoting a free society. When people accept one another’s differences, individual liberties and freedom are respected; such people prosper together. Tolerance does the work of peace because it naturally eliminates religious, tribal and personal conflicts.”

    Gabriel Okeowo, the Operational General Manager of BudgIT, an organisation using technology to drive civic engagement, harped on the need to promote accountability in governance. He said the youth must keep public officers accountable at all time.

    Noting that there was a missing gap in resources allocation and application by the public office holders, Okeowo observed that people are usually kept in the dark about what the government is supposed to provide and what the people are getting.

    Lamenting that every household in Nigeria provides its basic needs, such as water, light, security and roads, he said it would amount to culpability on the part of the youth to look away when the resources to cater for their future are frittered away by government’s officials.

    Okeowo said young people’s future could be in jeopardy if they fail to participate in civic engagement towards making the government accountable.

    He said: “We have no other country. If we must make it work, the youth must exercise their civic actions and participate in the process of governance in which everyone will act as watchdog. Having active and responsible citizens who engage the leaders by placing demand to access government’s documents gives hope in creating a free society we will all be proud of.”

    Project Coordinator of YouthRISE in Nigeria and West Africa Adeolu Ogunrombi called for what he called “sensible drug policy”, noting that the recent ban on codeine by the government was an affront on individual liberty and users’ freedom.

    Ogunrombi, a drug policy expert, maintained that criminalisation of those that abuse drug would not solve the problem of abuse. He said the government needed to look at the cause of abuse of drugs and measures to reduce demand for codeine before its total ban. He said effective drug policy must be proactive rather than reactive in nature.

    Pamela Adie of Equality Hub Nigeria spoke on the need to create a society where sexual orientation would not be a parameter to judge people, but their character. She called for an end to discrimination against people with unconventional sexual orientation, saying everyone matters in achieving gender balance in Nigeria.

    Speaking on Anticipating the future: A case study of Nigeria, Olumayowa Okediran, Assistant Director of International Programmes for Students For Liberty (SFL), said only free market economy could guarantee West Africa’s future.

    He told the participants that free government had no business with creating corporation, adding that prosperous nations had their economies run by private individual and not the government.

    Linda Kavuka, SFL’s African Programs Manager, explained why many countries in Africa remained poor in her lecture titled: Free markets and African societies. She pointed out that many Africans were in confusion by misconstruing colonialism as capitalism, saying the former created the problems being faced by Africans; while the latter, she said, presents an opportunity to African countries to create wealth and reduce poverty.

    She said: “Foreign aid have failed  our continent because there is no input in form of contribution by the people the aids are intended to benefit. To a have virile and economically viable Africa, we need independent central banks, independent judiciary and free media among others. There must be democratisation, market liberalisation, diffusion of power and massive investment on infrastructures.”

    Wale Ajetunmobi, a U.S. Exchange Program alumnus, helped the participants to understand the nexus between Islam and free markets. He said Muslims had no excuse not to engage in trade, because the Prophet Muhammad’s showed example through his action as at trader before and during his prophethood.

    He cited various teachings of Prophet Muhammad to back up his claims about the need for the Muslims to engage in lawful economic activities.

    Ajetunmobi said: “The idea that free market originated from the West was erroneously pushed down the throat of Africans. Free market is as old as humanity itself and has survived many civilisations. It has undergone several modifications to ensure it is open, free and profitable for the people.”

    About 400 participants from various walks of life attended the conference, which featured panel of discussion on entrepreneurship, activism, success stories and activities of young women in liberty movement across Africa.

    In his address, the organiser and SFL’s African Programs Associate, Oluwafemi Ogunjobi, appreciated the participants for “turning out massively” to the event despite the downpour that preceded the day.

    The conference ended with training anchored by Temitope Saliu, which focused on how to use Google digital tools. She told the participants how they could use their digital skills to leverage opportunities on the Internet.