The Nation Newspaper

Category: Opinion

  • The Mbu that Nigerians do not know

    The world over, they are regarded as special species of Homo sapiens and sequel to their sophisticated training, they most times are a step ahead of their peers. In Nigeria, however, many security personnel especially those recruited and enlisted into the Nigeria Police have lost every iota of credibility to the extent that it is an uphill task to build up the personnel to what it used to be in pre-independent era. In those days, security was an exclusive terrain where personnel were hardly seen and if they were to be sighted, it was usually during operations or at police stations. It was very difficult to find a police officer in places where there were no security operations.

    However as society develops, so also do people advance in knowledge and sophistication. Many have dabbled into security matters with mere primordial understanding of the entailments of security. In all of these, Nigerian politicians unlike their counterparts in other shores have positioned themselves as meddlesome interlopers. They present themselves as leaders and also believe that every institution in their state is intricately intertwined with their portfolio. No wonder they see nothing wrong in the steps they take on issues that have nothing to do with politics.

    The case of Commissioner of Police Mbu Joseph Mbu needs mentioning. Except the uninformed is served with his achievements, many may not know and appreciate who this officer that Nigerians want to sacrifice on the altar of politics. Politicians care less about the achievements of officers in the police, there are officers and there are officers. For instance, Mbu, as far as I know, is among the grade ‘A’ officers of the Nigeria Police Force. Here is an officer that graduated from the University of Lagos where he made Second Class Upper in Political Science, and got enlisted as a cadet officer in 1985. Besides, he has worked in virtually every part of the country. His first major posting was as the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Ukwa-East and Isiala-Ngwa Local government Area of Abia State. His insistence on discipline made the commissioner to upgrade him as the State Command’s Provost and later as the Head of Management in the Abia State Command.

    It is on record that Mbu is one of the few officers in the police with zero-tolerance for corruption and indiscipline. When he was the Federal Highway Commander in-charge of Bauchi, Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states, motorists were daily applauding  every of his leadership qualities. His performance in those states brought him to limelight, culminating in his being made chairman of the Federal Task Force on petroleum in Niger State. He was also appointed Area Commander in Minna where he received an award as the best area commander in Niger State. When robbery was getting out of hand in Delta State, it was Mbu that was picked and posted to Ugheli, and again he was decorated as the best Area Commander in Delta State. His rise, which is in tandem with handwork, resulted in his posting as Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Administration in Anambra State command. He became a ready tool for positive change in the police when the police colleges in the country were decapitating and contractors were having a field day and swimming in corrupt and sharp practices. Mbu was posted to rescue the sinking police schools and secondary schools. Before he was posted out of the education unit, he had successfully restored the dignity and falling standard of all the 55 primary schools and seven police secondary schools in the country. It was during his brief tenure that police officers’ confidence was restored to send their children to police schools and secondary schools. It was, therefore, not surprising when he was moved and made chairman of the monitoring and implementation committee of Police Housing Projects when it was discovered that contractors were conniving to deliver low quality jobs to the detriment of the Force.

    Like him or hate him, Mbu is an officer of repute. He may not have tread softly the “political soil” where Governor Amaechi holds sway, but Mbu should not seen as one picked from Mars to be in charge of the Rivers State Police command. The Inspector General of Police, who approved his posting, understood the terrain and geo-political atmosphere before posting him there, so why the hullabaloo? Some Nigerian politicians are short-tempered and think every Federal Government personnel serving in their state automatically falls under  their jurisdiction and therefore should be subject to their influence and power. A case on record was that of Assistant Inspector General of Police Donald Iroham who as police commissioner was having a running security misunderstanding with former Governor Ohakim of Imo State who turned it into a political issue and demanded the transfer of the commissioner. After a prolonged intervention by the IGP, Iroham was posted out of Imo State to Lagos. He later ended up in Kwara as that state’s police commissioner.  Mbu’s posting to Rivers State is like a man thrown into a surging tide and left to swim against the tide. Such venture requires gut, stamina, relentlessness and perseverance. All these attributes are the gains of every policeman who has undergone the mobile police force training. It is appropriate to mention that the same Mbu before his appointment to Rivers State was the CP in charge of the Police Mobile Force when ethics and discipline was at its lowest ebb. Again Mbu was redeployed to Oyo State where he tamed the ever aggressive motor union activists.

    No one is covering any of his perceived excesses and utterances but the truth is that the wading into the alleged crisis by the Inspector General of Police, who dispatched a Deputy Inspector General of Police to investigate and write his report, is a welcome development. In my opinion, Mbu as a political scientist and a trained police officer concerned with the security of the state understands the challenges. Perhaps more than anyone, he appreciates that there should be a synergy between top security personnel and political leaders, for good governance can only be guaranteed in an atmosphere of peace.

     

    •Okezie is an Abuja-based security analyst.

     

  • Ikoku, Fafunwa, Bajah and the pedagogy of human capital development

    In development theory, it has become axiomatic that the most definitive underlying core of any abiding development for any nation is the critical mass of people who have been capacitated to rethink and rehabilitate the nation’s national direction. Human capital development therefore becomes the first law in any blueprint for sustainable development. In other words, if development is about the people, then worthy development is all about the education of those who will diligently drive the spirit of the nation towards the desired direction. The educational system of any nation becomes the crucial framework through which this critical mass of people percolates for developmental appropriation. If, for Henry James, “a teacher affects eternity,” then those who are taught properly affect the direction and configuration of the national project of any state. And both the teachers and the students become the foundation on which a good state is erected. These truths are not just theoretical; they have been impressed on my mind repeatedly through my many contacts with the educational policies in Nigeria.

    The sturdiness of today’s global economies has been attributed to the supremacy of human capital as catalyst for global progress. The implication of this is that such first-world countries as the US and Germany have achieved greatness, while many more others like China and Brazil are coming very closely behind them because of their huge investments in the utmost maximization of human resources. In today’s world, with its knowledge-driven and Internet-inspired proliferation of information, these leading countries have discovered that while a massive human population, worthwhile investments in nuclear and military might, and virile socio-political and economic institutions confer comparative advantages, they cannot be compared to the dire expediency of a knowledge industry that vigorously drives the shuttle of governments’ development initiatives and their utopian quest to deliver the democratic goods to their citizens. This is why these nations have appropriately positioned their educational sectors as the inspiration of great strides in scientific and technological novelties. If Nigeria too, with its rich natural resource base and human capital, will join the league of these successful and industrialized countries, and achieve its dreams of prominence and growth, then it is high time we returned to those pragmatic models and visionary agendas of education, which place concrete human capital development at the heart of nations’ economic progress. And here, we come face to face with the iconic figures who have struggled and pioneered educational ideas of global reckoning. The tragedy would seem to be that we have one way or the other not adequately countenanced the worth of those ideas. For Alvan Azinwa Ikoku, Babatunde Fafunwa and Samuel Tunde Bajah, (deciding on these three educationists and excluding, for now, many others like Ayodele Yoloye et al is a painful decision I had to take due to space constraints among other considerations), the decision to labour in the educational trenches of the Nigerian state was not one they were forced to take by “the very urgent need to eat”, according to Edward Braithwaite, the Guyanese educator. Rather, their decision arose out of a sense of vocation that deposits insights into the banks of innovative and pragmatic education.

    Dr. Alvan Ikoku—politician, teacher and administrator—was an outstanding educationist who obtained the University of London degree in Philosophy in 1928, and went on to establish one of the earliest private secondary schools in Nigeria, the Aggrey Memorial College in 1931 as part of efforts to bring the benefits of formal education to many others in colonial Nigeria. As a former Minister of Education, Ikoku worked for the introduction of uniform education in Nigeria through the Nigerian Union of Teachers, whose interests and activities he served relentlessly as national president. Ikoku’s vision of education, together with Professor Babatunde Fafunwa, validated the idea that pragmatic education wrapped in indigenous epistemological framework ought to be one of the core objectives of Nigeria’s educational institutions. Professor Fafunwa is not only an unrepentant advocate of indigenous free education; he dedicated his life to the advocacy of a Mother Tongue (MT) education. Apart from his roles, as Minister for Education, in the establishment of several educational institutes—the National Board for Education Measurement (NBEM, later National Examinations Council), the Nigerian French Village in Badagry, the Arabic village in Borno State, the Nigerian Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), and the National Institute for Nigerian Languages in Abia State; Prof. Fafunwa’s legacy is attached to the Ife Primary Education Research Project which established the relationship between indigenous education, mother tongue teaching and national development.

    While Ikoku and Fafunwa labored around the form of educational practice, Bajah’s contributions resonate around the specific scientific and technological content of that educational project. There is no doubt that worldly progress is part of the overall objectives of a state’s national project; and scientific education is the number one global machinery for achieving it. Many would remember Bajah as a science educator who simplified science-based topics for young people in Nigeria. Chemistry for Secondary Schools, which he co-authored with Arthur Godman, has been translated into six languages, including French and Spanish. Another important publication is his Primary Science for Nigerian Schools. Bajah’s popular interpretation of the sciences becomes significant for many reasons. First, it serves a critical pedagogical strategy to raise the awareness of science and mathematics which are not popular for Nigerian students. Second, it places the significance of science education within our collective consciousness as a nation that is about to take her place in global development order. Third, Bajah’s simplified science books open Nigeria’s young minds to the possibilities that science and mathematics promise. With Bajah, we stand the chance of a “technological transfer” into the deepest framework of the Nigerian national project.

    With Fafunwa, Ikoku and Bajah, we confront the exigency of a viable educational alternative that could serve as a fulcrum upon which Nigeria can begin to rethink her human capital development. For these educational icons, the starting point is an indigenous educational planning programme which plucks an educational direction to development through servicing relevant national goals. If the goal of education is to produce diligent citizens with admirable character traits conducive to leading others, then it becomes imperative that such an educational objective can only flourish within an endogenous context which Nigeria’s cultural diversity provides. This implies that our pedagogical framework must begin to reflect indigenous thinking and paradigms. These paradigms are here with us, and it is the achievements of these educational planners and administrators that they got to them first. Their seminal ideas and noble efforts compel us to believe that Nigeria’s vision of sustainable growth and development is a possibility that must be anchored on the citadel of concrete investments in human capital development.

    The first condition for the possibility of the national project in Nigeria, therefore, must necessarily be at the human capital development level where we can achieve the education of citizens who only see their ethnic, religious and cultural attachments as springboards for participating in the creation of a Nigeria national identity which is motivated not by what can be gained from Nigeria, but what we can all contribute to increase her worth and our own betterment. Madame de Stael, the French writer, remarked that “a nation has character only when it is free.” For us, Nigeria achieves her own national character only when it is educated.

     

    • Dr. Olaopa is Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Youth Development, Abuja.

  • Fashola and the hypocrisy of Ndigbo

    The Abia State government last year came up with an ingenious policy. All non-indigenous employees in the state public service, including teachers, were to be relieved of their duties because the government’s resources were meant for the indigenes.

    Over 80% of the people affected are from Imo, Ebonyi, Anambra and Enugu states.

    Most leaders maintained a conspiracy of silence on this policy which for long will remain one of the greatest impediments to Igbo unity.

    Abia was actually treading the path of the Enugu State government which had in the late 1990s decided to sack all non-indigenes in the state’s public service in order to “save resources”. Almost every casualty is Igbo.

    But a number of Igbo social activists have now suddenly found their voice.

    The overnight activists have created an unmistakable mass hysteria in both the social media and the traditional media over the bogey that Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State has been “deporting” Igbo people from the state.

    Some politicians who are determined to make political capital out of the so-called repatriations have been busy simulating the hysteria. But perhaps, unbeknownst to these people, they are hurting in a most profound manner, strategic Igbo interests.

    No people can survive—let alone—progress on a diet of lies and emotions, or by allowing politicians to create and sustain a culture of paranoia or siege mentality, otherwise called persecution complex.

    The Lagos State government launched a few years ago, an ambitious project to turn Lagos, Nigeria’s economic nerve centre with a population of some 16 million, into a true mega-city. This entailed, among other things, the enthronement of a new social order and a different aesthetic regime.

    Consequently, the state began to clear thousands of homeless people, beggars and urchins from the streets.

    Thus, a large number of “area boys” who are mostly Lagos Island indigenes, like the governor, are to this day still arrested and hounded into “Black Maria” trucks by Kick Against Indiscipline (KIA) officials. Borrowing a leaf from such places as New York and Hawaii, Lagos initiated a programme of returning many destitute individuals to their home states. Over 3,000 of such people have been relocated back to northern states where they have now been reintegrated with their families. When about 80 were sent to Oyo State in November, 2009, the governor screamed to the high heavens that “they were dumped on Molete “Bridge” in Ibadan.

    About 14 destitute people from Anambra State were sent to Onitsha last week because of the failure of the state’s Ministry of Social Welfare to arrange for the arrival of these people , unlike those of Akwa Ibom and Katsina states which made proper logistic arrangements for their own people. A section of the media has since gone to town with the extremely dangerous propaganda that the Lagos State governor is driving Igbo people out of Lagos through “brazen deportations and repatriations”.

    Even professionals and scholars expected to be more thoughtful and strategic in their actions have capitulated so easily to the mind poisoning reports and have been responding exuberantly.

    A man who introduced himself as a professor from Nnewi called me on the phone on Thursday morning to assert with so much authority that “only Anambra indigenes are being targeted for expulsion from Lagos because all Nigerians know that Anambra is the leader of the Igbo nation”.

    A lawyer in Maryland, United States, wrote that Fashola dare not relocate beggars of northern extraction, alleging that the Igbo are the whipping boy of Nigerian politics.

    He is blissfully ignorant of the thousands of northern beggars taken away from Borno Street in Ebute Metta and environs.

    How did the industrious, highly republican and intelligent Igbo people embrace, all of a sudden, this level of groupthink that has made us look like a people with unimaginable amnesia?

    In June, a very big plaza in Olodi, Apapa, belonging to Igbo entrepreneurs and housing hundreds of Igbo traders was burnt at night. The next day Fashola was at the site and promised to rebuild it at the Lagos State expense. No Igbo governor has visited the place up to this moment, and none has promised to assist the victims. Last December, Ngozi Nwosu, an actress, was reported to be down with a serious liver ailment, so an appeal fund was launched. No South-east government, including her home state of Imo State, responded, just as no wealthy Igbo men and women did.

    Only N1.5million out of 6m needed for treatment in the United kingdom, could be raised. Fashola provided the remaining N4.5m. And now some so-called Igbo activists are accusing him of anti-Igbo sentiments.

    Two months ago, Fashola completed the biggest housing estate he has built and named it after Emeka Anyaoku, an erstwhile Commonwealth secretary general from Anambra State. At a time some Igbo people cannot be hired as teachers or civil servants in south-eastern states other those of those of their origin, Fashola recruits them in large numbers, with some becoming judges and magistrates. His Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Ben Akabueze, is from the Southeast. The chief executive of the state Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency, Joe Igbokwe, is an engineer and publisher from Nnewi. Mac Duruigbo, from Imo State, is Fashola’s Personal Assistant on the Media.

    Fashola gave Ikemba Nnewi practically a state burial last year in Lagos, the only non-South-east governor to accord the famous Biafran leader this high honour.

    He was the only governor who attended last March the Chinua Achebe colloquium at Brown University in Rhode Island, United States, where he praised Achebe for his monumental achievements at a time the great writer was the butt of criticism by the Yoruba political establishment following Achebe’s unflattering remarks about Obafemi Awolowo in his new book, There Was A Country, a personal account of the Nigerian civil war. So, how did some of us come about the brainwave that the dynamic and cosmopolitan Lagos State governor is anti-Igbo? Simply because his government relocated some Igbo elements to their home state, some of whom came to Lagos to do business but instead took to hard drug consumption and became urchin, better known as “area boys”! Interestingly when Fashola began to crack down on “area boys”, most of whom are from his state, Igbo traders were over the moon, rejoicing that the governor had saved them from the miscreants of “area boys” who had for decades been tormenting the traders daily, extorting huge sums from them and viciously assailing those who refused with dangerous weapons.

    There are more Igbo people in Lagos than any other state.

    There are so many investments in Lagos because Lagos has for long welcomed the Igbo people, enabling Ndigbo to prosper in Lagos more than any other state. And no governor in Nigeria’s history has demonstrated as much affection to our people as Fashola.

    Commonsense dictates we protect in a strategic manner the interests of our people and reciprocate the friendship of well meaning individuals and groups. It will be a colossal tragedy if we savour the dishes of salacious lies and terrible propaganda which we are being served by opportunistic politicians and garnished by hysterical Igbo social activists. We must be guided at all times by truth and reason.

    • Adinuba is Head of Discovery Public Affairs Consulting.

  • Osun leads in Nigeria’s school enrolment

    Osun leads in Nigeria’s school enrolment

    If there is any sector Governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has made salient and loudest impact since his assumption of office, it is in the area of basic education. This, however is not to deduct from the other laudable transformational projects and programmes going on across the length and breadth of the State of Osun. However, his education policy is by far more rewarding and enduring. It’s obvious that the governor’s primary role in governance is to address the debilitating problem of education which is central to the fight against extreme poverty.

    The reason be that all other things, as it were, may perish or decay, depending on who Governor Aregbesola took over the mantle of leadership from or who takes over from him after he must have climbed down from the saddle. The same cannot be said of the knowledge acquired which inculcates values, attitudes, competence and skills that are capable of transforming individuals and turning them to self-regenerative, recreative and rebounding agents of change.

    A case in point is the virtual aptness of a junior school student, Miss Yetunde Ojo, who came third in dancing competition held at Osogbo Grammar School, Osogbo during the Tree Planting Programme which attracted students from schools in Osun-Central Senatorial District. Miss Yetunde who was asked to name her three trees in order to nurture them with tenderness to maturity gave their names as follows: (1) Yetunde (2) Ojo and Top-casts. To the astonishment of the mammoth crowd she told the audience that Top-casts is the name of her future company, when the moderator demanded to know who is Top-casts! That is the imponderability and imperishability of education.

    So, one is not surprised to know that the State of Osun is taking the lead in the number of students, enrolment in Nigeria, including female student, across the country. A report by the National Bureau of Statistics in Wikipedia puts Osun children’s in primary school enrolment between 70 and 80 percent. The report by Wikipedia was posted on July 8, 2013. According to the report, no other state in the country falls within Osun’s category while Ekiti, Delta, Cross River, Enugu states rank between 60 and 70 per cent. Ondo, Lagos, Rivers, Bayelsa, Abia rank between 50 and 60 per cent, while Kebbi and Yobe states were on the lower rung of the ladder, with 10 per cent enrolment.

    Commenting on the enrolment feat in a parley with some journalists, Governor Rauf Aregbesola attributed the grand-breaking achievement to God and commitment. He said: “We thank God that our efforts are being recognised and appreciated. The Nigeria National Bureau of Statistics has published in its July, 2013 edition that Osun tops in primary school enrolment across the country.”

    The governor is of the view that the role of education in poverty eradication, in close co-operation with other social sectors, is crucial. He said no country has succeeded if it has not educated its people. He posited that not only is education important in reducing poverty, it is also a key to wealth creation. The governor submitted that the only way for Nigeria to realise her full potential is “to promote EFA policies within a sustainable and well-integrated sector framework clearly linked to poverty elimination and development strategies.”

    The success story is largely attributed to the Osun Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme (a.k.a O’MEALS), the brain child programme of the governor. The governor elected on the well thought out programme so as to reverse the very low academic performance of pupils in both internal and externals, and the realization that good nutrition is necessary for proper cognitive development of pupils. The school feeding of the O’MEALS programme which commenced on Monday, 30th April 2012 has increased the number of school pupils in public primary schools astronomically. So far, O’MEALS School Feeding Programme is being implemented in a total of 1,375 Primary Schools across the State of Osun.

    The daily feeding allowance for each pupil has been increased to an amount of N 50. 00, totalling N 250. 00 (equivalent to $ 1. 56) per school week. For effective service, a total number of 3,007 food vendors/cooks were trained and are currently employed to serve midday meals for pupils of classes 1, 2, 3 and 4 in all primary schools in the State of Osun. All food items being utilised for feeding pupils are available locally and this is to boost the income of local farmers and others on the supply chain. Nutrition experts developed a menu-table of foods to be served to school pupils.

    The cheery news is coming at a time most Africa’s education systems are failing to meet the brave targets of Millennium Development Goals projected towards Education For All (EFA) in 2015. President Goodluck Jonathan attested to this fact a few weeks ago that Nigeria cannot meet the MDGs target of (EFA) by 2015. Though the President acknowledged the fact that Nigeria cannot meet the target, he came short of telling Nigerians what efforts his administration is making or planning to make to boost enrolment in both public and private primary schools.

    Before now, Osun has witnessed low enrolment turn out in primary schools until the debut of Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme of the current administration. The programme, no doubt, spurs a great deal of parents and pupils into enrolling in public school in large numbers and this explains why the state towers above other states across the country. Fortunately, the pace-setter State of Osun with a middle income status is reaching the world’s full school attendance benchmark, thanks to a ruthless focus on primary school enrolment policy of the governor.

    The development goals, which Nigeria and other poverty-stricken countries will fail to meet in two years, are in the areas of basic education, childcare, maternal health, hunger, gender equality, environment etc. With at least 10 million children out of school in 2013, Nigeria is far from meeting the goal of universal primary education. Education For All (EFA) in 2015 is clearly not one of the issues on the national agenda. The statistics on infant and maternal mortality remain as grim as ever. Extreme poverty is globally defined as living below $1.25 dollars a day; millions of Nigerians still fall below this baseline.

    It is useful to think about what 2015 means to power-seekers in Nigeria and the significance of the year to the global movement against excruciating poverty. The lesson of the failure in meeting the 2015 MDGs is that the aim of policy should henceforth be education and poverty eradication. At a time when the global attention is on education and poverty reduction is most appropriate for such a debate. The debate is important and urgent. Any administration that fails to acknowledge the failure of our educational system, the unacceptable degree of human misery there on the streets is not only unfair to the people, it is also a disservice to that administration.

    Nigeria governments at all level should think big in matters of making poverty history in the land. But relative to the resources available and the growing potentials, there is a lot more that can be done about stamping out poverty through training and retraining in Nigeria. For the avoidance of doubt, there is nothing utopian about this proposition. China is reputed to have moved 680 million people out of poverty in two decades. That is more than four times the population of Nigeria. Brazil under President Lula achieved significant poverty reduction through education with other aggressive people-centred policies to a global acclaim. India has recorded a success story of moving millions out of poverty.

    The progress Governor Aregbesola is making in the area of education should serve as a clarion call to the federal government and other state governors to have a second look at their education policy. The unprecedented impact his education policy thrust has made in less than three years in office is a pointer to the fact that it is not too late to engage in programmes that bring happiness to the greater number of the populace.

     

    Eyinola, a social commentator writes from Osogbo.

  • Paedophiles in power

    Paedophiles in power

    Perhaps they could also learn one or two things from the following  press report in a newspaper just last week which reflects the views of one of the most respected leaders and islamic scholars in Saudi Arabia. The report reads as follows-

    ‘’A member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body has said that Prophet Mohammed’s marriage to a nine-year-old girl does not justify marrying minor children today because circumstances have changed in the intervening 14 centuries. The comments by Sheikh Abdullah al Manie, who sits on the Council of Senior Ulema, follow other recent public criticisms of child marriage, suggesting the government may be preparing public opinion for legislation setting a minimum marriage age.

    “They want to prepare the public to understand that the old days are not like today,” said Mekhlef al Shammary, a human rights advocate in Dammam. “It’s a crime to give a 12-year-old to be a mother and wife. “This is ridiculous. Even in Islam it’s not acceptable because the girl is not mature enough. She’s a child – she’s not ready for sexual relations.” The marriage of young girls, often to much older men, has been at the forefront of public debate in Saudi Arabia for a couple of years. It escalated early last year after it was reported that a man had contracted to give his eight-year-old daughter in marriage to a 47-year-old man in order to pay a financial debt. The contract was annulled after a public outcry.

    Sheikh al Manie is believed to be the most senior cleric to unequivocally denounce the practice of child marriage. Prophet Mohammed’s marriage to young Aisha “cannot be equated with child marriages today because the conditions and circumstances are not the same”, he said in remarks published in the Saudi Gazette and Okaz newspapers on Thursday. “It is a grave error to burden a child with responsibilities beyond her years,” the sheikh said. “Marriage should be put off until the wife is of a mentally and physically mature age and can care for both herself and her family.”

    Sheikh al Manie’s comments came a few days after Sheikh Abdul Mohsen al Obaikan urged legislation making marriage illegal for girls under 18.

    Waivers might be given in some cases by judges or the royal court, he added, according to reports in the same newspapers. Sheikh al Obaikan said the marriage of minors was a “grave error” and cautioned parents to “fear Allah and not marry their daughters by force” to men they do not want to wed’’.

    Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima, Professor Ishaq Akintola and all those that continuosly give the impression that child marriage is acceptable in islam and who erroneously believe that the honest criticism of such an abominable practice is an attack on their faith surely have much to learn from the contribution of this erudite Saudi Arabian leader and scholar. As a matter of fact, we all do and it is contributions like that that make the rest of us appreciate what a beautiful religion Islam really is when its tenets are properly understood and applied. Permit me to end this essay by sharing a few poignant words that my dear sister, Mrs. Toyin FaniKayode-Bajela wrote in a moving piece titled ‘’You Who Support Child Marriage’’ from London just last week. She wrote-

    ‘’You who for whatever ‘solid and noble’ reason have chosen to agree with legitimised child slavery, sexual abuse, psychological, emotional, physical and financial abuse under the guise of marriage. You who are silent about it or couldn’t care less as it’s not a topic worthy of inclusion in the constitutional review. All of you have freedom to choose your position on this issue- the freedom to wax lyrical, or not so lyrical, as is most often the case, on this issue. You enjoy the freedom to hold and have your own opinion. The freedom to air your opinion irrespective of whether l care for that opinion or not.

    “A girl child has no choice. A girl child has no opinion that anyone will listen to – a girl child learns quickly the horrific consequences of her unwanted opinion and her only goal is silent survival or only choice suicide. There is no point in appealing to an iota of empathy in you that agree with child marriage for whatever ‘noble’, ‘altruistic’ or patriarchal ‘reason’ as time and time again, on issue after issue, day after day, we are reminded that you have none. Everything is reduced to politics, religion and gain – financially or otherwise. For those of you who think we have spoken-’too much grammar’ on this isssue- you are darn right. I have just enough (grammar ) to speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves or those for whom the consequences of speaking out would be unspeakable, but not too little grammar that l might be tempted to stay silent.’’

    My heart missed a beat and a tear came to my eye when I read this and I commend Toyin for her admonitions to us all and for her touching words. I also commend Roz Ben Okagbue, Hanatu Musawa, Maryam Uwais, Stella Damasus, Aisha Osori, Helen Oviagbele, Oby Ezekwezile, Josephine Anenih, Cheluchi Onyemelukwe, Linda Ikeji, Bisi Fayemi, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Gbemisola Saraki, Nana Nwanchukwu, Modupe Debbie Ariyo and the many other leading women that have stood up and made their voices heard through their articles, actions, concerns and various commentries on the girl-child and child marriage issue in what is essentially a deeply conservative, insensitive, anti-progressive and male-dominated country and society which really does not offer much sympathy or hope to the plight of women generally let alone that of the girl-child and infant bride.

    Let me give a couple of examples of that insensitivity and our misplaced priorities. In Yerima’s own northern region no less than 93 per cent of girls do not complete secondry school education and 70 per cent of women between the ages of 20 and 29 cannot read or write. Worst still the region has the largest per centage and number of recorded vesico vagina fistula (VVF) cases in the entire world.  VVF is a terrible and very painful diesease which causes it’s victims to urinate and defecate uncontrollably and which is caused by child-sex, child marriage and child-pregnancies. According to our Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs. Zainab Maina, Nigeria has 800,000 cases of VVF today and we are adding 20,000 cases each year. All these cases are situated in the northern part of the country. Such a diseases, such suffering, such illiteracy and such high levels of poverty of the mind and soul should have no place in any part of our great nation in this day and age. Our people, whether they be from the North or the South, Christian or Muslim, young or old and men or women, surely deserve better than that. After all, we are living in the 21st century and not the 6th. Yet sadly these vices are more rampant in Yerima’s own northern region and constituency than anywhere else in the country and instead of attempting to improve on the lot, the education and quality of lives of the good people of the North all he thinks about is marrying little girls and bedding them. What a man and what a country. Outside of this contribution I have nothing more to say on this vexed and contentious issue of the horrendous plight of the girl-child and child marriage in Nigeria.

     

  • Two years after the UNEP Report: Ogoni still groans

    Two whole years after the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) issued a damning assessment of the Ogoni environment, the Ogoni people are forced to continue wallowing in the toxic broth that their lands and waters have been made to become.

    Ogoniland was once a land that supported productive farming, fishing and related activities.  That was so up till the moment the oilrigs began to puncture holes in the land and crude oil began to be spilled on lands, forests and rivers. The air was clean but that changed when gas flares belched like dragons out for the kill.

    Today, twenty years after Shell got excommunicated from Ogoni, thick hydrocarbon fumes from sundry pollutions hang in the air.

    From the late 1980s, the Ogoni people raised alarm over the wholesale destruction of their environment. They followed this by careful and robustly peaceful organising.

    With the Ogoni Bill of Rights of 1990 they catalogued their demands for environmental, socio-economic and political justice. Although the Bill of Rights was presented to the Nigerian government, till date there has not been a whisper by way of response to, or engagement with, the document.

    The Bill of Rights became an organising document for the Ogoni people and also eventually inspired other ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta to produce similar charters as a peaceful way of prodding the government into dialogue and action.

    The Bill noted that although crude oil had been extracted from Ogoniland from 1958 they had received NOTHING in return. We reproduce articles 15-18 of the Bill to illustrate some of the complaints of the people:

    15. That the search for oil has caused severe land and food shortages in Ogoni – one of the most densely populated areas of Africa (average: 1,500 per square mile; national average: 300 per square mile.)

    16. That neglectful environmental pollution laws and sub-standard inspection techniques of the Federal authorities have led to the complete degradation of the Ogoni environment, turning our homeland into an ecological disaster.

    17. That the Ogoni people lack education, health and other social facilities.

    18. That it is intolerable that one of the richest areas of Nigeria should wallow in abject poverty and destitution.

    This Bill of Rights was the precursor to the Kaiama Declaration of the Ijaws, Ogoni Bill of Rights, lkwerre Rescue Charter, Aklaka Declaration for the Egi, the Urhobo Economic Summit Resolution, Oron Bill of Rights and other demands of peoples’ organisations in the Niger Delta.

    The UNEP report of presented to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on 4 August 2011 completely confirmed the claims of the Ogoni people “That neglectful environmental pollution laws and sub-standard inspection techniques of the federal authorities have led to the complete degradation of the Ogoni environment, turning our homeland into an ecological disaster.”

    The report found that, without exception, all the water bodies in Ogoni was polluted by the activities of oil companies – Shell Petroleum Development Company (Shell) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Indeed the report stated that some of what the people took as potable water had carcinogens, such as benzene, up to 900 times above World Health Organisation standards. The report also revealed that at some places in Ogoniland, the soil is polluted with hydrocarbons to a depth of five (5) metres.

    The UNEP report revealed that the Ogoni homeland had indeed been turned into an “ecological disaster,” as the Bill of Rights asserted. We remind ourselves that the UNEP report made recommendations that most of us saw as low hanging fruits that government could easily have responded to assuage the pains of the people and commence a process of restoring the territory to an acceptable state. The apparent inaction is nothing but a squandering of opportunities to rescue a people and for impactful political action.

    A total clean up of Ogoni land will take a life time or about thirty years at the least. That is the length of time UNEP estimates it would require to clean up the water bodies in the territory. And it would require an additional five (5) years to clean up the land. How is that a lifetime? Well, life expectancy in the Niger Delta stands at approximately forty-one years.

    At the eve of the first anniversary of the presentation of the UNEP report, the Federal Government hurriedly cobbled up an outfit incongruously named Hydrocarbons Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP). The project was set up basically to hoodwink the Ogoni people into thinking that action was being taken to implement the UNEP report. A year after the setting up of HYPREP under the Ministry of Petroleum Resources – a major polluter of Ogoni land – the only visible acts of implementation of the UNEP report has been the planting of sign posts at some places informing the people that their environment is contaminated and that they should keep off. You could almost laugh, but this is sad and serious. Keep off your environment! No options given. The people still drink the polluted waters and farm the polluted lands. Seafood is still being scrounged from the polluted waters and community people still process their foods in the crude-coated creeks.

    Two years after the UNEP report, we believe that it is not too late for the government to act. President Jonathan can:

    • Declare Ogoni land an ecological disaster zone and invest resources to tackle the deep environmental disaster here.

    • Urgently provide potable drinking water across Ogoni land

    • Commission an assessment of the entire Niger Delta environment. An assessment or audit of the environment of the entire nation should equally be on the cards urgently.

    • Those found guilty of crimes against the people and the environment should be brought to book and made to pay for their misdeeds. Blame for oil thefts must go beyond the diversionary focus on the miniscule volumes taken up by bush refiners.

    • The major crude oil stealing mafias must be uncovered. Crude oil and gas volumes must also be metred as demanded by groups such as the Environmental Rights Action (ERA).

    • Engage in dialogue with the Ogoni people as to the time-scale and scope of actions to be taken to restore the environment. Issues raised in the Ogoni Bills of Rights and the UNEP report provide good bases for dialogue. Extend this all over the Niger Delta.

    • Ensure that the actions to tackle the ecological disaster that the Niger Delta has become are not seen as opportunity for patronage or jobs for the boys.

    • UNEP should play a key oversight role, to ensure quality and to build confidence in the process.

    • The body to tackle the problem should be domiciled in the Ministry of Environment and should not by any means be under the polluting Petroleum Resources Ministry.

    • Shell should be ordered to urgently dismantle whatever remains of their facilities in Ogoni land along with toxic wastes they dumped in the territory.

    • Shell should also be required to replace the Trans Niger Delta pipeline that carries crude oil from other parts of the region across Ogoni territory.

    • Clean up the polluted lands and waters.

    These are just some of the steps that must be taken urgently. The UNEP report gives a good list of several things that need to be done. The time has come to halt the ostrich posture and to face the national environmental challenges squarely. Two years is long enough. Our peoples have patiently lined up to fall into early graves.

    Twenty-three years ago several Ogoni people were sacrificed because they dared to speak up concerning the state of their homeland.

    A stanza of the Nigerian National Anthem urges, “The Labours of our heroes past shall never be in vain.” We cannot continue to sing those lines mindlessly while the ecological disaster persists and our heroes groan in their graves.

    Bassey is Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF)

  • Ladoja’s tar-brush propaganda against Ajimobi

    Ladoja’s tar-brush propaganda against Ajimobi

    Former Governor of Oyo State, Senator Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja, may not strike you as a brilliant man at first sight. But those who misread his brand of politics often live to regret it. His major strength is the tendency of his traducers to take him for granted, equating his looks with the strength of his political machinations. But those who take him for granted never remain on the political front to tell the story. He makes a mince meat of them with his deadly political punches.

    But Ladoja could be dour and uncompromising when he chooses a particular path. Perfecting the Adedibu school of politics—tar-brushing political opponents, making them unworthy and ramming in the final nail—he seldom has a rival in the mastery of this political weapon. It is a methodology that is serviced by falsehood and crude mudslinging.

    For instance, aware of the populist disposition of the Lam Adesina Alliance for Democracy (AD) government and desirous of making an inroad into the government of the time, Ladoja began the systematic tar-brushing of the governor as an Ebira man. His disciples, who cut across a broad clientele, were summoned to spread the gospel of this mudslinging throughout the nooks and crannies of Oyo State. Before Great Lam could wake up from his defence that his great grandfathers’ umbilical cords were interred on Ibadan soil, Ladoja’s lie had festered in the consciousness of the people like cancerous cells. During the April 2011 elections, his group also spearheaded the campaign round the state against Adebayo Alao-Akala. They alleged that he served school children poisoned bean cakes. The rest, as they say, is history.

    Right now, Ladoja is fighting the political battle of his life. Calculative and wily, it must have occurred to him that at age 72 in 2015, if he fails to make an appearance at the Government House in Agodi, his political fate would be sealed forever, hence the obsessive desperation to hone his political skills and make ample use of the wiles of his trade. But, at a point, Ladoja was in a dilemma. Virtually in every nook and cranny of Oyo State and even beyond, the popularity of his cousin and nemesis, Ajimobi, was becoming unbearable. Indeed, the encomiums freely poured on Ajimobi are a great indictment on Ladoja’s stint in office as governor.

    Undoubtedly the most debilitating of the punches rained on Ladoja by Ajimobi’s strides is the construction of the Mokola fly-over in Ibadan. Because Mokola is critical and strategic in the transportation network of Ibadan in terms of commerce and being one of the earliest roads in that part of the country, it was necessary to have the fly-over. Also, travellers commuting from Lagos to Oyo had to pass through this route while transportating their goods. This has thus caused a traffic implosion that renders the intersection extremely busy and jam-packed. This fly-over is thus a tool to reduce traffic conflicts, reduce accidents, loss of lives and wasted man-hour. Hence, this fly-over is mindful of the historical import of the route and takes into cognizance the trajectory of the Mokola-Sango-Dugbe Road.

    Administrations had come and gone and none found the need to break this logjam expedient. But as soon as Ajimobi began the construction of the bridge, Ladoja realised the shine it would take off him, so he tried to appropriate it. On a radio interview, he told his audience that he owned the fly-over blueprint, as it was one of the bridges he had dreamt of constructing. Assailed by the deluge of kudos to Ajimobi over it and the massive encomiums he is receiving for restoring the beauty of the state, Ladoja began his usual campaign of hate and calumny targeted at weakening the support base of the Ajimobi government. And he has been making a good job of it.

    His attacks are based on a quartet prong. One, that the fly-over is substandard. Second, that its price was inflated and third, that it was not necessary. On a different level, he attacks the government as not having a human face for, in his words, removing traders from markets without alternatives. To buttress his argument on the first charge, he wondered why barriers would be placed on the fly-over, maintaining that it means the bridge is not strong enough.

    Even though the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Oyo State sees the weakness of Ladoja’s arguments as unbecoming of an engineer, it failed to see the Ladoja gambit in totality. The truth of an argument is inconsequential in Ladoja’s tar-brushing propaganda.

    Widely travelled persons will intuitively mock Ladoja on the first score of his criticism. Even Lagosians would laugh him to ridicule. That a barrier was put at the foot of a fly-over indicates that it is weak? You do not even require the rigour of an engineering school to realise the falsity of this assertion. Down there in Lagos, the Amuwo-Odofin/Festac, Kodesoh, Mobolaji Bank Anthony, Yaba, Airport Road bridges, etc all have barriers at their feet to discourage articulated vehicles. That a former governor of a state in this century, who claims to be an engineer, would level this kind of allegation speaks volumes of the retrogression that befell Oyo State in the years he held sway as governor.

    That it was unnecessary? This contradicts even Ladoja himself. If it was, why did he, according to him, have the blueprint for it in the first instance? If it is unnecessary, why does he now advocate that the bridge should have been dual carriage? The truth is that there is no need for the fly-over to be a double lane bridge, otherwise it would amount to colossal waste. Even the Molete fly-over is not necessary as a dual carriage bridge as there is sparse traffic on it.

    Ladoja’s mischief is most vivid on the cost of the fly-over. On a recent radio programme in Ibadan, he stuck at this dross shamelessly while comparing the one in Abeokuta with the Mokola fly-over. Again, was the falsehood being peddled by Ladoja as a result of mischief or naivety? For instance, rather than the length of the Ibadan bridge being 550 metres, he called it 470 metres and the Abeokuta bridge that is 400 metres, he says it was 620 metres. It is the usual Ladoja misinformation machinery.

    But the most significant answer to his caterwaul of naivety and mischief is that while the Abeokuta fly-over truly costs N1.5 billion, Ibadan’s cost N2.9 billion but the variances in their packages make the difference. First, before the award of the constructions, the two governments never came together to compare notes and as such do not have same Bill of Quantity. Second, being a rocky town and sited on a rocky foundation, the Abeokuta bridge apparently requires less cost on its foundation. But Ibadan does not have a visible rocky outcrop as the foundation of a bridge should be based on solid rock strata. Thus, the foundation type of the Abeokuta bridge requires less rigour than Ibadan’s. Again, the Ibadan bridge goes with several ancillary furniture, which the one in Abeokuta does not have. These are 500mm water mains of steel pipes of about 2km, as the old water pipelines were replaced. Second, there is a 1.2 kilometre road network that was rehabilitated and widened beside the Ibadan bridge, which is included in the costing. There is also the cost of relocation of NEPA (electrical) and telecommunications facilities. Also included in it is the cost of compensation for demolished buildings and beautification around the fly-over.

    Not done, Ladoja has intensified the campaign to paint Ajimobi’s government as inhuman due to its removal of street traders. He cited the example of the Bola Ige government which relocated traders from Old Gbagi to Old Ife Road. Again, the Ladoja misinformation is that Ajimobi never relocated traders from any market but street traders, for whom he has constructed an ultra-modern shopping complex and is still building more. But the question to ask Ladoja is, while he was governor and he pulled down shops, did he construct any in replacement? Why the escapism of citing Ige when he could have given the examples of himself? And why would a man who, as the Ashipa of Ibadanland, is close to being the Olubadan of Ibadanland, relish such misinformation? This, apparently, is why the Olubadan recently sought to bar his chiefs from politics.

    To achieve the aim of acting as the dissembler of the panagyrics heaped on his cousin, Ladoja has sent his henchmen to the streets; mechanic workshops and the nooks and crannies of the state, on a mission to tar-brush the governor and odorize him. For this, he made up with a major hatchet man of his successor and sent him on the errand to achieve this in the media. Also, anyone who runs foul of government’s environmental policy and is made to pay a fine, his henchmen are always on hand to pay, exchanging Ladoja’s call card instantly. What a coy politicking!

    A psycho analysis of Ladoja is that of a man desperate for power, thus making him a mamba provoked and ready to sting. But why would a man who should be a statesman embark on such Samsonic Pull Down the House campaign that can be likened to the proverbial Yoruba rat which vowed that rather than not having a bite of the cowpeas, it would scatter the beans tray?

    •Hassan teaches English Literature in a secondary school at Monatan, Ibadan.

  • Jonathan’s many controversies

    Jonathan’s many controversies

    President Barack Obama gave some useful insights into Africa’s problems during his three-nation visit to Africa recently. At his town hall meeting in South Africa which was beamed live on satellite TV to a global audience, the American President blamed poor leadership and corruption for the collapse of infrastructure and the consequent youth restiveness in Africa. This was a response to a question from a lady from Nigeria, who sought Obama’s intervention to the problems of education in our country.

    This was the same position Rev. Chris Okotie maintained when he reviewed Nigeria’ s 14 years of democracy recently: “Although President Goodluck Jonathan has been fighting a tough battle in the area of insecurity in which he deserves full support of all Nigerians, it is very disappointing that he failed to fight corruption with as much vigour and determination. Corruption has soared to new, unprecedented levels under his watch.

    “Contrary to his campaign promise, he has not been able to fight this monster which is now a great impediment to our development efforts. In the next two years, President Jonathan must address the infrastructural deficit with emphasis on our collapsed educational system and the power project, if he truly hopes to transform Nigeria in the remaining 24 months of his presidency.”

    The confluence of ideas between Mr. Obama and Rev. Okotie on the way forward for Nigeria reflects a broad recognition of our nation’s predicament, when viewed from the prisms of a local and global perspective. It is a wake-up call for Mr. Jonathan to inject active purpose into his administration which has grown lethargic due to his own lack of political savvy to rein in the various contending forces on the Aso Rock corridor.

    Truly, the Jonathan presidency is embattled on all fronts; from the northern elites who are working to frustrate his 2015 ambitions and disparate armed groups led by Boko Haram who have created the biggest security challenges ever faced by any sitting president to the weak leadership of his party, the PDP, which is unable to unite the various power blocks within its ranks. Anyone in the Presidential Villa at this time will face an uphill task running the affairs of state.

    Nonetheless, Mr. Jonathan ought to show himself as a President who can rise above these challenges and govern effectively. This requires an imaginative leadership manoeuvre that will make his Transformation Agenda work at the national level inspite of the disquiet in the polity. That’s the stuff great leaders are made of. Nobody says turning this country around is ever going to be a tea party.

    Mr. President may do well to reflect on the views canvassed by Rev. Okotie who argued that Aso Rock could use a special juicy package of agricultural and educational reforms to develop the north where Islamic fundamentalism is rife as a counter-force against the hypocritical Ulamas who are quietly championing a theological commitment to the promotion of political sharia.

    As some have said, we can look back to look forward. The pastor-politician recalled how early in his presidency, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo barely settled in office when the northern Muslim clergy instigated some governors in the core north to introduce the Islamic penal code, sharia, despite the secular character of the Nigerian constitution. But the wily OBJ was able to stare down the sharia governors and went on to govern effectively, drawing a red line the governors dare not cross.

    Consequently, the sharia scare died a natural death. It was only when President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua came on board that Boko Haram reared its ugly head. It is on record that Yar’Adua, on settling down in office, promptly summoned the Niger Delta militants to the negotiation table. That was how the amnesty programme was born. Needless to say that it brought peace to the troubled south- south region.

    Many have said that the peculiarity of our problems which are aggravated by a defective federal structure would require a mercurial type of leader in the mould of OBJ or ex-military President Ibrahim Babaginda for the nation to run smoothly. While that may be true, the laid-back President Jonathan may use his task force style of governance to drive his political outreach to all the six geo-political zones, by addressing their peculiar problems. An example of this is his prompt intervention in the 27-year old Lagos-Ibadan Expressway which is finally being rebuilt after dilly-dallying by three previous administrations.

    This has gladdened the hearts of the south-westerners and the Igbos who use the strategic vital link road between the North and the South. Jonathan could do same for the East-West road, a second Niger bridge at Onitsha and the lingering security challenges in the north. He was elected to solve problems. He can not run away from this task despite his many controversies that continue to hurt his two-year presidency which again Rev. Okotie highlighted in his article titled: Jonathan’s Many Controversies.

    President Jonathan must also find the courage to engage the corrupt elements in his government in a direct head-to-head combat to restore his appeal as a leader with zero tolerance for corruption. All the encumbrances hampering the functions of the anti-graft agencies must be removed and the so-called untouchable cabal be put under the transparent trail they have always evaded because of their connection to the Presidential Villa.

    •Ayodeji wrote from Lagos.

  • Oshiomhole’s town hall meeting: Matters arising

    Oshiomhole’s town hall meeting: Matters arising

    It was a stinker, just as it was heart-rending, when Edo State government during a town hall meeting last week, opened a can of worms on the goings-on in the state primary schools. The picture was one of widespread, across-the-board falsification of ages among primary school teachers in the state. Part of the bizarre revelation was that 789 out of 1,379 teachers obtained their primary school leaving certificates before the age of 8 or 9.

    Incredible – you say? That unfortunately was what the audit of the state primary schools undertaken by the Information Communication Technology Agency, under the instruction of Governor Adams Oshiomhole revealed! Thanks to the agency, the exercise confirmed the moral degeneracy by those charged with preparing our kids for the future. So bad was the situation that the duo of the Comrade Governor and the ICT Managing Director, Mrs. Olayemi Keri would lament that the society has degenerated to a point that our forefathers could never have imagined.

    The story of the rot in the teaching cadre reminds of the analogy of the baker of bread who wanted everyone in the society dead; all he needed to do was to add a pinch of a deadly substance to the flower and the deed is done. This time, the catastrophe is even more unimaginable given that we are dealing with teachers who have the responsibility to mould the future of our young ones.

    The statistics of the rot is certainly as interesting as it is revealing. Only 1,287 teachers representing 9% out of 14,484 teachers have proper and accurate records in the system. The rest 91% have various forms of discrepancies in their records. Another 1,379 teachers representing 11.5% claim that they obtained their primary school certificates after they had been employed as teachers. In fact, some obtained their primary school certificates not more than two years ago, from the school in which they were employed as teachers!

    Indeed, merely going by what the records suggest, some of the teachers may have gone to Teachers’ Training College or obtained National Certificate of Education (NCE) before they went to primary school. The governor also gave out statistics on the teachers-student ratio in all the local governments as 30 students per teacher, a figure that is much lower than the UNESCO recommendation on student-teacher ratio, suggesting that there are more teachers in the state primary schools than needed.

    And like the governor would also observe at the town hall event, monies arising from the exit of teachers by way of voluntary resignation, death, and otherwise simply vanished without trace!

    We can therefore understand the governor’s exasperation when he avers that “It would not be helpful to the cause of education and our resolve to deliver quality education to our pupils if we do not deal with this issue decisively”.

    No doubt, there were some positives from the audit. For instance, it showed that there are more female teachers than male teachers in the state. On this, the governor would observe: “in some cases, we have more female pupils in schools than male and that is very encouraging, because some states, are still battling with how to get their female children to school, but that is not the case in Edo.” He attributed this to the number of steps taken to restore confidence and integrity into the public schools system – the result of which is the steady increase in enrolment in public Junior Secondary Schools in the state.

    Speaking on why the town hall meeting on education became necessary, the governor explained that it was to find a solution to the problems. He told the gathering: “a school with all the necessary infrastructure without qualified teachers is like an empty hall. The solution to this problem, I may not know, but I am sure, before the end of this all important meeting, the solution would come. But, before knowing the solution, there is need to understand the severity of the problems”, since according to him, “The future of our children lies in sound educational foundation. Edo State government can not afford to leave the future and training of our children in the hands of incompetent teachers”.

    He also made the point repeatedly that the government was open to suggestions on the way forward just as he reaffirmed his determination to put in place a mechanism to check corruption, bribery and malpractices in the recruitment of teachers, particularly by the state Post Primary Education Board (PPEB).

    According to Walter Scott, “The best part of man’s education is that which he gives to himself”. Often times, columnists, critics and commentators in the country have tended to focus most of their attention on the leadership problems bedevilling the nation, leaving out the sector that determines what entire generations become to fend for itself. It is no longer news that the nation’s standard of education has nose-dived, worse than anybody can possibly imagine if the investigation by Edo State government is anything to go by.

    As it is, the fight to restore dignity and respect to our primary, secondary and tertiary institutions should not be viewed as one man’s fight, but, it should be viewed as a fight thrown at all men of goodwill in the nation. If we allow the flame that was handed down to us by our founding fathers to quench in our hands, posterity will never be kind to us!

    Though, Oshiomhole has allayed teachers’ fear of possible mass sack, he stated that he needed to get all stakeholders alerted on the issue so as to find a lasting solution to the malaise.

    If I understood Oshiomhole correctly, he is simply saying that the primary school system, which is the foundation of learning, needs a turnaround, not cosmetic, but in real sense, a complete change – a real transformation.

  • Uduaghan: Combating poverty with health-care

    Uduaghan: Combating poverty with health-care

    The healthcare portfolio of Delta State has witnessed a steady and upward boost since its inception on August 27, 1991. The progress recorded in the health care sector in the past 22 years, especially since 1999 can be described as phenomenonal. The sector, particularly witnessed fundamental policy engineering under the

    administration of Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan with focus on enhanced healthcare delivery in the state. Today, Delta State stands out as one of the healthcare-conscious states in the federation on account of the accessibility of healthcare facilities to its citizens both in the urban and rural areas.

    Delta State, pursuant to one of Uduaghan administration’s three point agenda of human capital development, was the first among the 36 states of the federation to introduce and successfully implement the free maternal health care and the free rural scheme now being studied for implementation by some other states. This is in keeping with MDG goals.

    The state today boasts of six central hospitals, one General Hospital each in the 25 local government areas of the state, and comprehensive health centres spread across the states as well as primary health centres in almost every community in the state. It also boasts of a world class Oghara University Teaching Hospital, which ranks as one of the best in Africa with state-of-the-art facilities.

    To ensure adequate manpower for the sector, government under the Uduaghan administration has established a number of Nursing and Midwifery schools as well as a school of Health Technology across the three senatorial districts of the state.

    As an icing on the cake of its healthcare policies, the Uduaghan administration introduced the free rural health programme which ensures that health care delivery (men, materials and accessories) are moved from one rural area to another, dispensing quality healthcare service, covering all ailments, including surgeries, to all Deltans-young and old. Tens of thousand of Deltans have received effective healthcare service from this programme since inception with many immensely relieved, as well as enjoy the care at the hands of medical experts who run the motorized ultra modem clinics.

    Some evidence of the success of the Delta government healthcare programme is from the several testimonies of those it has impacted the most – the people. For instance, there was case of Ogechukwu Monye 24, in Oshimili North local government area, from Ibusa, who regained her sight after she was treated by the medical team on the rural health programme which was widely published.

    After her miraculous healing, the 24 year old said, “As you can see me now, I can see with both eyes. I am short of words to express my sincere gratitude to the state governor, Dr. Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan for making it possible for me to see again and for saving the lives of many people like me. Only God will sufficiently reward and strengthen them”.

    Another example is the case of an 85 years old peasant farmer, Raphael Enebeli, from Emuhu, Ika South local government area. He was successfully operated of cataract and Hernia. Pa Enebeli while reliving his happiness said, “My family will forever remain grateful to Governor Uduaghan for saving lives. May God continue to guide him and protect him as he pilots the affairs of the state”.

    Mary Igbiwie, 42 years, from Kolokolo, Warri North local government area though resides in Agbor, said “I was married for many years but could not bear children due to fibroid. I had no money to go for the surgery. I managed to get pregnant after a long time but since I had my child 11 years ago, I could not conceive again. I was advised to go for surgery to enable me conceive again but could not afford N150,000 charged in a hospital in Benin-city, Edo State and N120,000 in another hospital in Warri”.

    “When I heard of the state free rural health scheme, I did not believe that such expensive surgery could be done free of charge. I finally trapped them at Kwale. Initially I was afraid but the medical team calmed me down. They were very humane and kind hearted. The surgery was done successfully. God will bless Uduaghan for me”.

    There are plethora of cases similar to Mrs Igbinu Chinyere Nwaogu, 37 from Omumu, Ika South local government area. She was operated of fibroid. Earlier she could not afford N80,000 bill before help came through rural healthcare programme of Uduaghan. There were many more. Among these were Ugochi Nwose 36, from Okpanam, Oshimili North local government area who contended with acute waist pain and serial miscarriage linked with fibroid and Ngozi Nmose, from Ewuru-Agbor who got the fibroid which plagued her for years removed.

    Rosemary Obuseh lived with fibroid due to her inability to afford N100,000, before the regime of free rural healthcare. Suzana Ozorji, 55, from Emu-Obodeti had carried virginal prolepsics for 24 years. She said, “sometimes I noticed that my womb was always coming out, I used my hand to push it back whenever it happened. My family could nor afford the cost of corrective surgery over the years. The Uduaghan rural health team did the surgery for me free of charge”.

    They all said in their testimonies: “if we were to pay money, it wouldn’t have been this quick and easy. God will bless our governor, bless his family, everything he touches and all the people working with him”

    In the explanation of Dr. (Mrs) Akpe, Aghogho, a member of the medical team, over 60 persons had undergone surgeries at the Mobile Field Hospital between 2011 and 2013, since the scheme commenced out of which 38 cases were cataract extractions, hemorrhage (pile) and lymphoma. She also added that major surgeries close to 15 were referred to the central hospitals.

    It is also true and I agree with Mrs Esewezie, wife of the Ika South transition committee chairman, who observed that records have shown that since the inception of this scheme mobidity and life expectancy have improved in the state. Good life is here.

    Overall, I want to say that Delta State under the watch of Uduaghan has in the past 5-6 years established herself as pace setter in Nigerian health sector through the initiation and implementation of sound, people oriented health policy.

    Idama, lives in Delta State