Category: Letters

SIR: Good teachers do not make good politicians. I don’t know if this is partly responsible for why they are told to wait for their wages but a good Nigerian politician would ditch an office holder the moment he is no longer in a position to award contracts or grant favours.

But teachers are different. During this years World Teachers Day celebrated on October 5, at Eagle Square, Abuja, Nigerian Teachers remembered one of their own, a former official who advanced the cause of national education, including teacher’s welfare, when he was in a position to do something.

The decision of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) to honour the immediate past Governor of Kano State, Malam (Dr.) Ibrahim Shekarau (Sardaunan Kano), out of office is dumbfounding.

By many independent accounts, his administration enjoyed the distinction of implementing more projects in the education sector than any other in the federation; asides, it constructed more secondary schools than any other state in the country.

The NUT example has inadvertently widened the frontiers of the debate on national leadership. Our public forums are saturated with opinions in strident condemnation of the performance of the aggregate of the national political leadership. The supreme irony however is that the majority of speakers have been in positions of leadership. They also had visions. But what landmark achievements legacies did they bequeath?

At inception, the Shekarau administration made the revival of Kano’s education sector a cardinal programme. The engine of this revival was located in the uplift of teacher’s morale. The sector was in a state of structural decline and morale was low. Local and foreign training had been suspended while backlog of salaries and leave grants remained unpaid. Where educational facilities like laboratories, libraries, technical equipments and teaching aids existed at tall, they were too few and obsolete. There were almost no computers in Kano’s public schools in 2003.

However, in eight years, his administration recorded landmark achievements, especially in student enrolment, construction of classrooms, equipping of laboratories and boosting teachers’ morale. Between 2003 and 2010, the state recorded a 48% increase in primary school enrolment and 82% increase in secondary school enrolment. With the introduction of free tuition for girls in primary and secondary schools, in addition to other measure, was responsible for increased enrolment of girls by 64% in primary schools and 113% in secondary schools from within the same period.

To cope with the upsurge in school enrolment, the Shekarau administration upgraded 210 Junior Secondary Schools and established 42 senior secondary schools and 551 Junior Secondary/Islamic Schools. It recruited additional 14,343 qualified teachers into the primary schools and over 6,000 into the secondary schools. The administration increased students’ scholarship allowances by 25-50% with effect from the 2004/2005 session and revitalized scholarship awards to 29 courses of study that were earlier rationalized by the previous administration.

The point is that, under Shekarau, teachers were kings and so treated. Even before the federal government got around the idea, and while some state governments were still consulting, Kano teachers were the first to earn the new Teachers Salary Scale (TSS), and this was without prompting by any pressure group. As was typical of the Shekarau administration, while the teachers were agitating for the new scale, the cost implication was mapped out. The governor gave the Head of Civil Service the marching order to pay before the ink dried on the agreement paper.

Out of office, Malam has continued to enjoy the generous affection of the millions of people, across the political aisle and across the nation, who celebrate him for his honesty and purposeful focus in government. That he is the most respected and most popular ex-public officer in Kano presently is not in question. In respect to his achievements in the field of education, Al-Hikmah University Ilorin also honoured him with a honourary doctorate degree alongside other distinguished Nigerian but more crucially, after he left office. This is the man the NUT chose to honour. Considering that it is more lucrative to throw garlands around the neck of a sitting governor than honouring a former one who has no favours to confer on anyone, what the NUT has done is nothing but a courageous intervention in the debate on national values.

• Sule Ya’u Sule,

Kano.

SIR: Late Libyan President Muammar Gadhafi once predicted that Nigeria would break up. Also, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of America published a document in 2005 that highlights some probable events that can make Nigeria a failed state. Home and abroad, some people are already giving up hope on the entity called Nigeria. And as if to confirm their fears, Nigeria is facing one of the hardest time in its 52 years of existence as a sovereign state, a severe threat to its nationhood. So, in such a time like this, as a country in crisis, we need to weigh our options.

To some, Goodluck Jonathan lacks the gravity of a leader in crisis. That is why, in their view, the president cringes from a full fire-for-fire approach to fighting the Boko Haram menace.

There are two broad options for addressing security challenge: peace and war. While peace is not desirable because of its “weaknesses”, war is always very expensive. If Nigeria wants to take the path of war, despite the fact that security agencies in some quarters are said to have been compromised, we are up to the task.

However, as promising as war option seems, nothing suggests it will produce the desired outcome.

Memory will not fail us in recalling our neighbouring African countries that have recently taken to violence to solve internal problems. The question the world is asking now is if they are any better for it. Has post- Gaddafi Libya known peace? Is post Mubarak Egypt any better? What those countries wanted was not just a change of leadership, but a better life characterised by rights and freedom. John Pepper Clark concludes in “The Casualties” that it is not only those who die in battle but also those who are left behind that are casualties of war. If we care to consider, the war will not be fought in Aso Rock but within our domains.

Though hard to believe, it is weakness to opt for war when there is an option of peace. Peace is more demanding than war, from whatever perspective we view it. That is why only the courageous can take the path of peace. In the pursuit of peace, moral fabrics of the leaders are exposed to severe tests of the literal fire of intensified violence from the insurrectionists, and that of the criticisms of those who believe that might alone is right; who would not even attempt to understand why peace could be a better option.

The value the leaders place upon our union is revealed in time of crisis. These values and ideals (or lack of them) are brought into the consciousness of the people. However in war, things happen too quickly for such much needed evaluations.

Since 1970 we have taken so many steps away from war, but here we are today considering it again. Sure President Jonathan understands the cost of war. That is why he remains somewhere between guns and faith. If peace is not desirable, war becomes the choice. It is a path we once took, so we are acquainted with its challenges.

Today the Civil War is a history, but not in the memories of those who witnessed it. The road not taken is always the better way—this explains the plight of those who prefers the rashness of war to the meticulousness of peace. Some of them have become wildly emboldened as a result of over-exposure to media violence, assuming things always play out the way they are presented in movies.

Perhaps, if Gowon and Ojukwu were in Jonathan’s shoes today, they would chose differently than they did 45 years ago. Those who feel Jonathan is too slow in resorting to violence to solve Nigeria’s security problems should reconsider their conclusion, much more at the realisation that in war, everyone is a casualty. Otherwise, when the war they clamour for on the in the media eventually comes, they will realise that even the Internet is a luxury only a time of peace affords.

• Wole Oladapo

Enugu

SIR: The death of Patrick Yakowa and five other Nigerians in the ill-fated helicopter misadventure, no doubt, was a tragic incident. The outpouring of condolences from across the nation in that regard is highly commendable. In the same vein, may I also join other Nigerians to deprecate the alleged reaction to the incident by some Muslim youths who took to the street in jubilation, said to be in celebration of the opportunity it has created for one of their own, the deputy, to succeed the late Yakowa as the Chief Executive of the state.

There cannot be a worse demonstration of inhumanity should this be proved to be true.

Expectedly, the unfortunate demise of the late Governor Yakowa has created a matrix of power vacuum. While the deputy has since been sworn in line with the relevant constitutional provisions in that regard, he has also left behind another vacuum, that is to say, the position of the deputy governor of the state from whence he emerged to become the deputy. No sooner had the people of Kaduna State come to terms with the reality of the demise of the late Yakowa than the strident calls from quarters began to emerge for the nomination of Mrs Yakowa as the deputy governor. No other reason has so far been given other than that her appointment will help to soothe the pains inflicted by the death of her husband on the family.

While the fact cannot be gainsaid that the death of the late governor must indeed have inflicted great pains on the family and associates alike, beyond all that, it is not insensitive for us to pause a little and do a calm review of the agitations in many quarters calling on the governor to make the widow of Yakowa the deputy governor. Except some persons think out of the box, and fast too, Kaduna people are about to travel the same old path we travelled that has brought the entire country to the sorry pass we are currently, when the only reason why some voted for either Jonathan or Buhari during the last presidential poll was the religious inclination of the respective candidates. That path, I dare say, is one of sentiment where laudable reason is sacrificed on the altar of primordial sentiment.

It beats me that some people even in a democracy could afford to think that the fact of the death of a spouse should automatically qualify the surviving spouse for political position left behind by the deceased spouse. Remember, Yakowa was a deputy who later became governor by default. It is befuddling to me that beyond the expression of sentiment that making Yakowa’s widow a deputy governor will comfort the family. Nobody seem to give any thought as to whether Mrs Yakowa is suited for the job nor the interest of other interested persons who will now be disenfranchised or denied the opportunity of vying for the position because Yakowa’s death as it were, has automatically qualified the widow!

For goodness sake, we are talking about an entity in a democracy and not fiefdom. We have already set a number of dangerous precedents in this direction. The cases of Yobe State, where the late governor’s sibling was immediately made deputy governor, and Plateau State, where the wife of the lawmaker who was killed by some gun men in the prevailing violence in the state, also had to replace the late husband in the state, and others, readily come to mind.

That is how the seed of dictatorial dynasty is implanted in a country. The desire of the political elites to perpetuate themselves in power is rearing its ugly head in another form. The interest of a state must be seen to be larger than that of an individual. That is the only way we can make progress as a nation.

• Chris Edache Agbiti, Esq.,

Abuja

SIR: I was shocked to read in the papers that the Revenue mobilization allocation and fiscal commission will not be recommending a new Revenue formula for the country now. This, according to them, is because funds are not available to conduct research that the commission is not aware of the enormity of the responsibility heaved on it by the constitution.
Apparently, the commission is aware that the present formula, which give the Federal Government over 52 percent of the revenue accruing to the Federation Account is outdated, unjust and illegal. Under normal circumstances, the review should be done every five years, in line with the conditions of the country.
Of all federal agencies, only the RMAFC can complain that it cannot perform its constitutional functions for lack of funds. As some newspapers have said, members of the commission are paid their dues – salaries, allowances, etc regularly, and there must be something left with which the commission can do some updating to existing data, which are ordinarily available in their archives. Must all commissioners necessarily have to travel all the nooks and crannies of our land to be able to update whatever figures and postulates they have in their offices?
Except the seven oil producing states, all others are groaning with debt burden, and government officials are confronted almost on daily basis with ever increasing demand for improvement in the standard of living of the people. Poverty is in the land. Both the states and local governments – are suffering and are looking for funds everyday to meet the just aspirations of our people. It is disheartening that an important organ as the RMAFC can sit down leisurely and pontificate on the need for more funds to conduct surveys.
I appeal to the 36 Governors of Nigeria to rise to the occasion and rescue this nation from an abyss. The billions that are stolen daily is as a result of too much money in the hands of Federal Government.
• Deji Fasuan (JP)
Ado-Ekiti.