The Nation Newspaper

Category: Letters

  • Make education priority at National Conference

    SIR:The Community Defence Law Foundation, CDLF, calls on the conferees at the proposed National Conference that education must be given a priority. It is no longer news that our educational system over the years have gone from bad to worse due to previous governments lackadaisical attitude to it, thereby making our educational sector not worth its’ salt.

    The 492 conferees about to gather in Abuja for the conference to discuss the soul and anatomy of Nigeria must consider discussing education very seriously. Education is the bedrock of any developing nation in the world and must be treated sacrosanct. The United Nations recognizes this importance and as such encouraged member countries to allot 26 percent of its total budget to education. In Nigeria today, public schools, institutions are academically weak, not run professionally, while infrastructures are fast decaying or completely non-existent.

    The conferees must not only discuss politics, religion and ethnic based issues, but must include education as one of its very urgent national issues. In our universities for instance, the libraries do not have enough books, magazines, journals that aid research during study. The science laboratories are not with any modern facility that supports science and technology study either, this is part of the reason why majority of our science students are not well exposed to practical knowledge of their field of study.

    The high cost of education in most Nigerian secondary and tertiary institutions is retrogressive. A country where the minimum wage is N18,000 per month for workers do not encourage mass education of its people. One of the primary agenda for discussion at the conference should and must be education for all citizens, the modalities at achieving and financing it. To achieve national greatness as a nation the mass of our people must be educated.

     

    •Uzodinma Nwaogbe

    Abuja

  • Reps’ and their 50 questions

    SIR: The Nigerian nation never ceases to throw up interesting, sometimes absurd scenarios. The latest of these is the ongoing face-off between the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the House of Representatives Committee  on Finance, over the budget and the state of the economy. The committee had asked the minister to furnish it with information and answer to a set of 50 questions which the minister obliged the committee. Last week however, the committee, through its chairman, Abdulmumini Jibrin, rejected the minister’s response out of hand, insisting that “some questions were either not answered, partially answered, ignored or completely misunderstood”. Consequent upon this, the minister has been sent another set of 50 questions and mandated to appear before the committee for further questioning.

    There is something not quite right in the present face-off. Indeed, it is actually members of the House of Representative Committee on Finance that have questions to answer. While it is true that the minister is the coordinator of the economy, it is also true that she is not alone in ensuring that the economy does not go to the dogs. The House of Representative, through its committee on finance, ought to realize that Nigerians are not fools and cannot be hoodwinked into shifting blames for the parlous state of the economy to the finance minister alone.

    How accountable are the lawmakers themselves? How have they been expending the monies allocated to them for constituency projects and oversight functions? What have they to say about the humongous amount being paid out to them every month in salaries and other emoluments, the bulk of which forms part of our recurrent expenditure?

    Can these men, in all honesty, wash themselves clean of the hushed allegation making the round that they routinely collect bribe in order to approve ministry budgets and other spending?

    We cannot forget the case of Honourable Farouk Lawan. We cannot forget that this is a parliament whose members have been routinely implicated in sundry cases of bribery leading to aborted investigation into corruption cases. Can this House consider itself morally upright enough to ask the minister the so-called 50 questions?

    No nation can expect to be great if the leaders will always think that they can always pull the wool over the eyes of the citizenry. For sooner than later, it would be revealed that no matter for how long falsehood may have been travelling, it will take only a small moment for the truth to catch up with it. Nigeria is our collective heritage and we cannot allow a bunch of self-serving people to keep it down in perpetual thrall.

     

    •Issachar Odion,

    <mail4issachar@gmail.com>

     

  • Who killed Shaik Awal Adam Albani?

    The gruesome murder of renowned Islamic cleric Sheik Awal Adam Albany is most unfortunate, dastardly and inhuman.

    The late Islamic scholar who was noted for his indepth analysis on most

    aspects of Quran and Hadith of the holy prophet could be seen as the general break down of security situation in the country.

    Many Nigerians, particularly the Muslims ummah, would not forget the killing of the late Sheik Jaafar in Kano some years back. The question in the mind of many Nigerians: what was the motive of this instant killing of some of these scholars who are revered by their people around the country and world at large?

    It behoves on the federal government to stem this gruesome killing of

    our great Islamic cleric, who are known for preaching peace, unity and mutual understanding amongst various religious adherents in the country.

    We sincerely believe those behind this unpatriotic act are not religion adherents who have the fear of God in their heart.

    We hereby call on security operatives to go the whole hog and unravel those behind this act of splitting the blood of an innocent citizen who was just expressing his God-given knowledge for the benefit of humanity.

    As election 2015 draws near, some evil people will use such opportunity of security lapses in the country to unleash terror in the country, thus throwing the country into turmoil.

    Nigeria should rise up to the occasion in exposing all those who don’t want the peaceful co-existence of this country.

    By Bala Nayashi

    Lokoja

    Kogi State

  • Orji has no hiding place

    The truth about the government of Governor Theodore Ahamefule Orji of Abia State can only be bent, but cannot be broken. The government has interest, but it is self-seeking. The government is a menace and a punishment to our people.

    The problem with the government is that it has no shame. Those involved in the government know better how to christen white black, because of their self-aggrandisement.

    Honestly, what the governor counts as an achievement is to lead a protest to Abuja, asking the PDP national chairman to avoid the governor who was in office before him. This is indignity, even when the government in Abia State has no dignity for its shameful attributes. The government is prejudiced, gluttonous and arrogant.

    Many of our people are jobless and impoverished. The government has created a better job for its foot soldiers in the area of praise-singing. They are doing this for survival in its entirety. They use both malicious and arbitrary languages to pass their mischievous praises against opposing views.

    Because Gov. Orji knows that he has no hiding place, as a result, he has resulted to creating a ‘constitution’ that would forbid his predecessor from attaining his political orgasm.

    One thing remains sacrosanct: Gov. Orji is one politician who is swallowing the political future of many and at the same time saying that he is laying a new foundation for Abia people. Just with such little power as governor, we have seen what he has become – King and Emperor.

    On this background, Abia State has been celebrating its obituary and many people are sending in their condolences for the untimely death of the state that was caused by our ‘Legacy Project’ Governor Orji. The present government is a monumental failure laced with monumental mediocre-workers. Abia people are weeping for the death of the state.

    Let the governor know that there is always a payback time. He should think of how he has put our state into motion without action. He should understand and accept the fact that his predecessor he is always haunting has been confirmed as a better governor when he was in power than him. Was it not only in Abia State that a sitting governor would mount on state media during festivals, luring our people to come and collect gifts and, therefore, using faceless groups to extol himself when he already knew that he has no virtue and value in the eyes of our people and other Nigerians?

    What is remaining in Abia State is for the dead to also endorse our governor, because of his penchant for recognition. Our people are yearning to be free from this slavery.

    Odimegwu Onwumere,

    Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

  • Ekiti students and WAEC exam

    SIR: Ekiti State used to take the accolade as the Fountain of Knowledge due to the value its people place on education. It is believed in many quarters that Ekiti has the highest turnover of professors and other academics who are making their marks in tertiary institutions within and outside the country.

    The people value education to the extent that poor parents are ready to sell their personal belongings to sponsor the education of their parents because of their belief that education is the best legacy to the young generation. In the old Western Region, old Western State and old Ondo State, Ekiti students towered above their counterparts in public examinations recording phenomenal successes and breaking academic records.

    There was hope that the state would maintain its pride of place in the field of education after the state was created on October 1, 1996 but years of neglect of public schools, poor quality of teaching personnel, lack of quality instructional materials, among other problems contributed to the decline of education in Ekiti State.

    At the time when Governor Kayode Fayemi came to office in 2010, students in public schools in Ekiti State posted a performance rate of 20 per cent in the Senior School Certificate Examination organized by the West African Examinations Council ( WAEC). The performance rate of Ekiti WAEC candidates increased to 27 per cent in 2012 which led to series of reforms carried out by the Fayemi administration.

    The reforms are already yielding dividends with the release of the 2013 May/June WAEC SSCE result which showed that students in public schools in Ekiti recorded 99.9 per cent in the examination.

    It is noteworthy that schools like Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, Ikere High School, Ikere-Ekiti and Government Science College, Iyin-Ekiti recorded 100 per cent success rate by their students. The Fayemi administration deserves commendation for working hard to restore Ekiti to the summit of education where it belonged.

    The huge investment of the administration in the field of education is already yielding results and efforts should be made to consolidate on the success being recorded.

    The investment include the Operation Renovate All Schools in Ekiti (ORASE), distribution of laptops to students of public secondary schools, capacity building programmes for teachers, special allowance package for teachers in rural areas, government-sponsored intensive coaching programmes for WAEC, NECO and JAMB candidates, provision of brand new furniture to pupils, distribution of books and other equipment to schools, to mention just a few.

    I want to urge the Fayemi administration not to relent in its desire to completely turn around the fortunes of education and permanently put the state on the education world map.

     

    • Odunayo Ogumola,

    Ado-Ekiti

  • Questions on the Hijab versus choir robe story

    SIR: The reported disruption alleged to have taken place at the Baptist High School, Iwo, in Osun indeed a show of shame. A thinking person would pause to know what the problem is with some schools in Osun and particularly the Baptist High School in Iwo.

    It will be recalled that it is this same school in Iwo that caused confusion a couple of weeks ago. The capacity of this school to stir up confusion has shown that there are disgruntled political elements in the state, who are fuelling this crisis.

    As an interested observer and a stakeholder in the state, I ruminated on the issue and came up with some posers.

    There are over 3000 schools in Osun. Can one errant school out of this whole lot be a representation of all the schools?

    Can anything done by this school be taken as the true state of affairs in the state’s education sector? Of the 3,000 students in the school, about 90 students were involved in this indiscipline. Does this number represent the majority?

    Why does this school choose to be different, constituting impediment against the progress and development of the education in the state.

    Will it therefore be accurate to conclude that the school re-classification system is unpopular because of what this school is being used for?

    The conclusion is that one out of 3000 schools is an insignificant number to warrant the kind of bedlam we get in section of the media.

    There is obviously, therefore, a calculated attempt by certain anti-people interest groups bent on thwarting the progress being recorded in the state. What one sees here is an ochestrated move to underplay the alternative perspectives in governance which the Osun example represents.

     

    •AbdulFatah Adekunle Owolabi

    Lagos

  • Football honours and the Nigerian factor

    SIR: Behold the typical Nigerian football activist! It is either the team he supports or is emotionally attached to wins a match of significance, with all decisions going in its favour, or else it is ojoro (officiating robbery)! Whenever the outcome of an event does not tally with the narrow-minded expectation of the analyst/commentator with populist proclivity, he resorts to propounding some curious, funny-sounding conspiracy theories. It is either one Issa Hayatou wanted his country to win a competition in which it was no participant or another Sepp Blatter was having a business relationship with a club manager’s daughter. If not, then it would certainly be because there were more Francophone nations in Anglophone countries!

    Such alleged “mau mau movements,” according to Nigeria’s untiring drum beaters, was the only reason under the sun why Cote D’Ivoire’s Yaya Toure would be adjudged African Footballer of the Year 2013 (an individual award) ahead of Nigeria’s John Obi Mikel. At least, the Nigerian “won” both the AFCON and Europa League titles in the year in question.

    The best student in a general examination does not necessarily come from the school with the best overall result. The fastest individual athlete in a relay race field does not necessarily belong to the winning quartet. This was proved at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa where Uruguayan Diego Forlan was adjudged the Most Valuable Player despite his country’s empty-handed return to Montevideo. His individual contribution in taking his team to the semi-final was simply class act. The team silverwares – gold, silver and bronze – belonged to Spain, The Netherlands and Germany, but the individual award clearly belonged to medal-less Forlan.

    From 1993 to 1999, there were seven ‘African Footballer of the Year’ awards. Nigerian players alone (out of 53 African nations) went home with a whopping five! It is worthy of note that Nigerian footballers were simply at their authoritative best in those glorious years. Yekini, Emmanuel Amuneke and Victor Ikpeba (“The Prince of Monaco”) were playing the best football of their lives while King Nwankwo Kanu was virtually a spirit, as Lionel Messi has been described. Even one who was never crowned, Finidi George, in Ajax Amsterdam, was at a time acknowledged, in many quarters, as the best right winger in the world. No wonder in the 1994 edition won by Amuneke, six Nigerian players, including Yekini, Finidi, Amokachie, Okocha and Oliseh, in that order, were in the Top 10.

    What were the prevailing circumstances when all these happened? Was the numerical balance of scale skewed in favour of the Anglophone nations? Were the Hayatous and Blatters of this world not yet born? Was the sagacity of Nigerian strategists in “the politics of the game,” as usually rhymed by the ubiquitous ojoro analysts, so overbearing?

    Reports even had it, over the Mikel issue, that an agent dared to ask Segun Odegbami, one of Nigeria’s precious real-time intellectual giants in sports, what he knew about “modern football.” So, if the “scientific” and “mathematical” Odegbami played archaic football in his days and, with all his intellect, knows nothing beyond it, what “modern football” did Mikel play beyond Toure in 2013?

    Yaya Toure won the 2013 African Footballer of the Year award, not because Francophone countries outsmarted Anglophone nations in “the politics of the game” but because he was simply class ahead of Mikel.

     

    • Dele Akinola

    Lagos

  • Before antidotes become ineffective

    SIR: The flow of a river can only be stopped by killing its source. If one tries to block its way without tampering with its source, one is only deceiving oneself because it will always find another way. The greatest challenge facing Nigeria today is insecurity from the Boko Baram insurgency.

    Obviously, the government is trying its best to combat this menace. But for me, the killing of Boko Haram members cannot bury the insurgency. The menace has its own source, the members of this insurgent group have sponsors who act as the godfathers and for as long as these godfathers remain “untouchable”, they will keep on recruiting more members. So, we can only celebrate the death of Boko Haram insurgency if we are able to track down its sponsors.

    Another problem robbing the country of development is corruption. The legislature, executive and most unfortunately, the judiciary are corrupt. To add salt to our injury, impunity is also now of greater height in the country. Corruption drowns development and incapacitates progress. When corruption is alive, development is dead. So, for as long as we have leaders who are corrupt, our progress as a nation will be at stake.

    Those who are in the position to hammer corrupt people but refuse to do so are in fact, the most corrupt because they are encouraging corruption by condoning corrupt acts.

    One thing is certain; one will be remembered for what one does today. For instance, every June 12 of the year, Nigerians always remember two past leaders for vertically two opposite things,good and bad. This teaches us that anybody who found himself in any position should respect people’s rights because whatever we do today will become history tomorrow.

    The country’s oil is also rotten. NNPC cannot account for a missing US$10

    billion. Sometimes, I wonder whether the oil we have in this country has done an average Nigerian any good. Nigeria is the largest producer of crude oil in Africa yet its citizens are buying fuel at a price which is higher than the price of fuel in some African countries that don’t even have a spill of oil embedded in their own soil. This is unfortunate!

    Our government has shifted all attention to crude oil and this has caused a decline in the agricultural exports of the country. Crude oil is a non-renewable energy resources; so, it may finish in some hundred years to come. If we must provide for our children, we have to invest in the agricultural sector.

    In a nutshell, it is better for us to effect a change now before the antidotes become ineffective when there may be no way out. So, corruption and impunity must stop, Insecurity must be buried and poverty must be totally eradicated if Nigeria must move forward.

     

    • Jamiu Idowu Esho

    Eruwa, Oyo State.

  • Akinjide and his Ajimobi score

    SIR: Chief Richard Akinjide granted an interview which was published in The Punch newspaper of Sunday, February 2,. It was quite revealing, but only to discerning minds. The one-time National Party of Nigeria (NPN) stalwart, known for his wonky 12 2/3 analysis of the 1979 elections, and foremost lawyer, was evasive on several issues raised by the reporter on the state of the nation. He was however reflective on the tough times his party, the PDP, is currently facing, both at the national level and in Oyo State.

    When asked on his assessment of the incumbent governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, he told the reporter that he would not score Ajimobi’s government a first class if he were to mark its score but would rank him average. Apparently lamenting the loss of his party to the then ACN, Akinjide had, at the early part of the government, told the world that Ajimobi’s government would soon leave the Government House. For a man with such nihilistic divination on a man he perceived as a political enemy to now score the same man he predicted his political and governmental death an average pass mark is indeed a favourable judgment.

    Chief Akinjide is known by all to be an exceptionally stingy man to everyone but himself, even in his ranking and estimation of the other person. When he attacked the late Lamidi Adedibu and his politics, Ibadan people asked him to point at a particular person who had ever benefitted from him, even though he is one of the most successful Ibadan sons, unlike Adedibu whom Ibadan people at least ate a plate of amala in his house everyday.

    In the said interview, Akinjide praised his minister daughter, Ms. Jumoke Akinjide to high heavens, committing Political Oedipus of romancing his own daughter preparatory to the 2015 governorship. What Mr. 12 2/3 has forgotten is that in Ibadan, we, like the biblical trait of Almighty God, will demand the sin of the father from the daughter, up till three generations.

    In any case, only a blind will not see the dualizations going on in all the nooks and crannies of Oyo State, the transformation of a once-centre of filth into a metropole by Ajimobi, the Hobbesian state of nature that Ibadan became, even under the tip of the nose of Akinjide and the peaceful, good governance that the APC government is giving the people now.

    For a man like Akinjide, a pass mark from him is like scoring 120 per cent in a thorough examination!

    • Kareem Inaolaji,

    No 2, Idi Ishin Road, Ibadan.

     

  • Open letter to Governor Suswam

    SIR: As an admirer and keen observer of your activities and performance in Benue State, I have not been very pleased with the assignment you’ve been given or awarded to yourself since the beginning of the current political imbroglio. You’ve been sending wrong signals to your great fans over there, the Tiv nation and Nigeria as whole.

    The good people of Benue State elected you to serve and promote the best interests of Benue people and not to run errands for the President. You can do your job very well and leave a worthy legacy without getting involved in the pettiness being foisted on our country from the presidency.

    The impression from certain quarters is that despite the re-election of Governor Rotimi Amaechi as Nigeria Governors Forum chairman, simply because it is against the wishes of the President, you are all out to run him out of office. If I may ask, what shall it profit you if President Goodluck Jonathan achieves his ambition of removing Amaechi as NGF chairman?

    What will it add to your own curriculum vitae (CV), if the governor is impeached?

    Truth is always bitter. I believe you have gone too far and too deep into this matter. President Jonathan is big enough and has all the machineries to fight his own battles. As a great son of ‘Tiv Awange’, you are too big and far important to be used as human King Kong.

    You stand to lose more than what you can possibly gain if you persist and continue on this dangerous road. You’re eroding and wasting your equity on a worthless venture.

    No matter how much you portray yourself to be humble and absolutely loyal to the President, it is a wasted effort. Any one discerning enough would know you’re heading somewhere; don’t be deceived that the President is fooled about your voluptuous desire. You’re an irrepressible soul. And when time comes the Nigeria mafia will try to cut you down to size.

    Please,permit me to refresh your memory a bit Your Excellency. Once upon a time,there was a powerful minister who wielded stupendous power. This minister was elevated to a point were he felt comfortably secure but after the death of his master, he was surgically removed and clinically eliminated from the system by the cabal. If any one had foretold the tragedies that would befall Michael Kaase Aondoakaa some years back, he would have called the person a fake prophet.

    There are bigger targets to fix your gaze on. Forget about going to the senate in 2015 and forcing your way through. As a matter of fact, such moves have been the trend and are just too predictable.

     

    • John Akevi

    Bauchi