By Ethelbert Okere

The sudden and unexpected dissolution of the Imo state executive council by Governor Hope Uzodinma, a few days ago, is perhaps the first opportunity Imolites would have to know the stuff their governor is really made of. After the news of the dissolution trickled in, I was inundated by calls from people seeking clarifications on whether or not a particular commissioner (no, former) was involved.

I kept referring them to the list of the eight that were retained and that it was unambiguous. But one caller kept saying that one particular name was “missing” in the list of those retained as released by the governor’s Chief Press Secretary (CPS) and Media Adviser. At a point, I then asked him to try and get across to the CPS himself and get the matter sorted out directly with him. After that, I sat back to reflect on the guy’s curiosity over that particular ex-commissioner.

The ex-commissioner is one of the closest friends of the governor and in the course of my discussion with the stubborn caller, he insisted that it was unthinkable that Governor Uzodinma would drop that fellow from his cabinet, no matter what. The caller did not get back to me apparently because he might have been so shocked ascertaining the true position of things that he didn’t know what next to say to me. Which brings us to the main  issue.

Governor Uzodinma on Wednesday demonstrated that the business of REHABILITATION, RECONSTRUCTION AND RECOVERY goes beyond emotions. Perhaps the caller did not know that apart from the particular fellow he had in mind, among those relieved were at least five others who are bosom friends of the governor and who have been with him for years.

Such is the level of personal sacrifice the governor is ready to make in order to meet the expectations of the people. Of course, the question that would easily arise is, why should a governor retain friends who are “incompetent” in his cabinet? But apart from that the question would mean going outside the reason  His Excellency gave for taking the step he took in the instant matter, it further delineates him as a man of immense courage. Assuming, without conceding, that the former commissioners were found incompetent, that should earn the governor more points; because the lack courage, which is euphemistically referred to as “lack of political will”, is the bane of governance in our clime. But amid the not so cheery news about the state of recent, Governor Uzodimma’s action a few days ago shows that under him, the good people of Imo state can reinvent the political will to move their state to greater hights.

Read Also: Imo cabinet and Uzodinma’s olive branch

The statement by the chief press secretary reported His Excellency as saying that the dissolution became necessary to “rejig and reenergize the system for maximum productivity.” The keyword here is “maximum” and the key phrase, “maximum productivity”. In other words, the governor wants to move up the productivity scale from perhaps an “average level” to the maximum. That should encourage every well meaning Imolite to correspondingly reenergize him or herself in the collective quest for a state where an optimal use of the creative energy of the people is in effect.

It means that just as Governor Uzodinma, Imolites should strive not just for the “good”, not even the “better”, but the best. Besdies, they should aim at elevating their collective psychic from its current low to a hight where nothing but the best is the abiding faith. It means a call to all and sundry to repudiate all tendencies that have kept our productivity, as a people, below average. Governor Uzodimma has shown that contrary to the impression in severally quarters, he has the capacity to reinvigorate the entire polity by first turning the heat on his fellow politicians, more so his own bosom friends, for maximum effect.

Are the rest of the society ready to reciprocate such a gesture? Are civil servants, traders, artisans, students, professionals, commercial vehicle drivers etc. ready to repudiate their own not-so-edifying proclivities to turn a new leaf? Are motorist in state capital, Owerri, for example, ready to queue into this new vista by driving in such a manner that productivity is not jeopardize through avoidable hectic traffic.  In a one-minute radio jingle by the Imo Orientation Agency currently running, commercial vehicle drivers in Owerri are reminded of the fact that reckless driving leads to traffic lock jams, which, in turn, limit the number of trips they can make in a day and, therefore, the amount of money they could earn.

That is at the micro economic level but we can extrapolate the analysis to include the fact that if every actor, whether in government or outside government, does his or her own bit diligently, we can push the aggregate productivity of the state to the maximum as envisaged by the governor.

The significance of the May 13, 2021 Tsunami, so to speak, could be further appreciated on the grounds that it came at a time the polity is extremely tense. It would be extremely rare to come across a political actor who would take such a decision at a period like this; when the norm would have been to continue to pretend that all is well and that things will sort themselves out; when the slightest move could rock the boat and heighten the vulnerability of an administration. But that is the stuff Governor Hope Uzodimma is made of. Which means, still, that he has the confidence that both the government and people of Imo state shall triumph over the current travails, the fact that the state is part of the larger ailing national super structure notwithstanding.

Finally, it means that the governor believes in the people, not just those in government with him. He knows that for every bosom friend in his cabinet, there are perhaps ten outside. Which means that he believes in the people, as a whole, not just his political acolytes; and that, indeed, and against what the state witnessed in the recent past, he is not interested in building a family of favoured praise singers. Of course, he would be expected to reconstitute the cabinet in no distant time and that would give another set of Imolites an opportunity to make their own input into the development of the state. The governor in a remark after the dissolution said that his former commissioners will still be found “relevant” if eventually they did not make the new cabinet underway.

Surely, the ex-exco members, among whom are the most amaible fellows the state can boast of, will be missed by those they came across in the course of their six-month long assignment; but of greater significance is that the state, as a whole, has another opportunity to showcase its abundance in human capital resources.

By Igboeli Arinze

Nigerians do not need an introduction to the person of Nasir El-Rufai, stormy petrel and present day Governor of Kaduna State. Known for a number of  impeccable virtues, the diminutive Governor has had the knack for telling truth to power whether it suits the times or not, he is not the usual Nigerian politician who only speaks when he is not at the so called dining table, El Rufai is vociferous whether he is in or out, he says it as it is and then is done.

However recent comments from the action governor on the SouthEast’s bid for the presidency seem to be a bit misplaced. Perhaps, El Rufai in his attempt to tell truth to power or the elite of the SouthEast region stoked unnecessary fires  by telling the region that it could not get the presidency by insulting other regions. To tell the truth, I was taken aback by such a statement, wondering if it was the same Mallam El Rufai that was talking on a region’s right to produce a president of Igbo extraction, a right so moral and so just, that it is unassailable in the minds of those who bear with them a sense of justice and fairness.

While I understand that the mallam is human and despite the numerous attempts to exalt him into a state of apotheosis he is still allowed to be human, his attempts to lump a region as whole into his attempt to disparage the presidential hopes of aspirants that may come from that region remains questionable and in his attempts to show working, he misses the point in all entirety and here’s why.

El Rufai has been accusing the SouthEast Region of insulting all other regions, I am however not in the know of any time where politicians or stakeholders of the region in unison organized an event where we took turns to lampoon all other regions, that a number of stakeholders for reasons best known to them have repeatedly called out the nation should not be attributed to the whole SouthEast. How El Rufai arrives at such a conclusion beats me, for even in the Bible, it is the same womb that gave birth to Esau that also begat Jacob, and so for every Nnamdi Kanu there is a a Hope Uzodinma, and for every Nnia Nwodo , there is a Chekwas Okorie, and for a thousand tongues that believe NdiIgbo have not been treated right, there are a hundred thousand tongues that will argue otherwise!

Read Also: Ortom to El-Rufai: You’re one of the sycophants misleading Buhari

El Rufai further misses the point when he advises the region to actively engage other sections of the country.  This is not esoteric and everyone knows that no single region can singlehandedly make one of its own president, a lot of horse trading will go into it and NdiIgbo, serious as we are in our bid to put our own in Aso Rock will readily engage every other region. Even at that has El Rufai forgotten that prior to Olusegun Obasanjo’s emergence as president, a number of chieftains from the region repeatedly fanned the embers of war owing to the June 12 impasse, pray did we all lump the Yoruba nation when Nigerians all over voted for Obasanjo for stability in 1999, if we are to follow El Rufai’s template, then Obasanjo who he served as President should never have been trusted with the mandate of the people. The same thing happened when Jonathan was seeking to be President, at the time he was Vice President and then Acting President, a number of Niger Delta leaders repeatedly threatened fire and brimstone should Jonathan not be elected , did Nigerians lump these prophets of Baal with the message of Elijah? No is the music here.

When the SouthEast as region or as a people took the approach not to negotiate for the presidency as every region should, one does not know, how Mallam El-Rufai arrived at the conclusion that we are not ready to do so baffles me, but then is this not a not case of giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it?

Perhaps, El Rufai is playing politics with such a summation as it is rumored that he is in bed with a SouthWest Governor who is scheming to be President come 2023. While I will not begrudge him as he is entitled to support anyone he likes, I think it  smacks of bad politics to subtly begin a campaign of calumny against a region, simply because one has a vested interest in the same ambition as a prospective running mate!

Is El Rufai not also aware that there are Igbohos and co in the Southwest, should this nullify the aspiration of any Yoruba to National Office?

El Rufai cannot lump NdiIgbo into one because of a minority of rascals!

May Nigeria Succeed!

By Nnedinso Ogaziechi

NELSON Mandela had options as a black man in apartheid South Africa. He had qualified as a lawyer and could leverage on that for a black elitist life. He did not. He fought the apartheid regime with all he had. He staked his freedom for twenty seven years demanding the end of the evil regime. Many of his compatriots died under very cruel circumstances. They all fought as hard as they could not just for themselves but for the people. In the end, his and other freedom fighters’ sacrifices paid off.

Nelson Mandela is a metaphor for sacrifice in leadership. He was honoured by a grateful nation with the presidency of a free South Africa. He received the Nobel Peace Prize and so many other global honours before his death at 95. So even providence honoured him with longevity despite all the hardships he went through as a prisoner in a repressive regime. His grace and altruism are legendary.

So the world and communities truly know and value service in leadership. However, for most developing nations like Nigeria, it is not always that those with a sense of service access leadership positions. The story of Nigerian independence, military coups and democracy has been a cocktail of the good, the bad and the ugly.  The constant reference to ’our heroes past’ (the women, the Funmilayo Ransome-Kutis, the Gambo Sawabas, the Margaret Ekpos etc. are often deliberately edited out of credit) is symptomatic of a nation in search of modern heroes and heroines in leadership.

There seems to be a dearth of truly altruistic political leaders in our different communities. The tendency to always look up to the center and state governments often make us to truly hold our lower tiers of representatives to account. We often do not think that our representatives from the ward levels to the State and National Assemblies owe the people good service. They often revel in the illusion that the people will always look to higher offices for services that are often not given for the benefit of the people. The result is the debilitating poverty and a deification of those in power in what is popularly known as the Stockholm Syndrome.

The average Nigerian seems to believe that only the president and governors owe them any sense of service. Most public servants at the legislative arm often get a free pass even when they are paid by the tax payers. The Nigerian people often demand nothing from their community leaders, representatives and even traditional rulers who are constitutionally maintained from the taxes paid by the people.

Nigerian legislators are some of the most highly paid in the world, an irony for a country that has become the poverty capital of the world with more than thirteen million out-of-school children. Most of the legislators only raise their voices for their own welfare and this has become their regular trademark in the words of late Afrobeat icon, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.

In the light of this, the recent viral story of the Councillor and deputy majority of the 8th Ogbia Legislative Assembly in Bayelsa state, Hon. Onem Tyna Miracle’s work for the people of her community becomes remarkable.  She had used her allocation for ward project and car loan to build a bridge linking Otuokpoti and Otuogon communities in her ward. The internet has been abuzz with her story and the fact that she rejected an attempt by some admirers of her efforts to raise funds for her through the #gofundme project.

The RoundTable Conversation caught up with the young female politician to get her story. Tyna is a graduate of political science from the Niger Delta University. She started off as the the secretary to the Organizing Secretary of the People’s Democratic Party in her state. According to her, she never really had any ambition to get involved in partisan politics. She was just doing her work as diligently as she could. However, at some point, some of colleagues  saw her work ethic and felt she would be a good and conscientious political player and persuaded her over the years to consider being an active political player. She did not even have money to spend but her party gave her a free nomination form and helped her with most of her campaign expenses as a way of encouraging her to run. She contested and won as a Councillor in her Ogbia 2 Ward.

Here then is her story: As a child, she had always seen and passed through that bridge that was in a very bad shape. Women especially pregnant women always dreaded that bridge as some of them often tripped and fell crossing the dilapidated old structure that served as bridge.  She had in her childish dreams always wished to do something to prevent women especially from falling on that bridge. She did not voice her dreams but it lived with her always.

So on receiving the project and car fund from the state government, she went straight  to consult with her community about what project to embark on.  Some people suggested that she should go renovate a police station or some other public buildings but the thought of what would be most impactful on her community having grown and seen how women coming from the farms fell across that very rickety bridge haunted her. She decided that the bridge must get a facelift even though she had little money. She decided to contact a local engineer with the little money she had.

It was not easy for me but I feel that leadership is about impacting on the people. I see the bridge project as a necessity for my grassroots people. At some point I wanted to withdraw because the money given to me had been exhausted but  I remembered I had the car fund in my account. I had to use it if only for the benefit of my people. So I added my car allowance because the project money ws not enough. The iron rods alone cost about N1.8m without  adding the costs of cement, gravel, sand and other items.

So with my car fund added to the project fund, the work was about 95% done and when governor Douye Diri saw the progress made, he called me and asked how I managed to get it to that level and told him that I used the project fund but it was not enough and I had to add my car fund too but it was still not enough given the work to be done. My governor was impressed and asked about my background and how I became a politician and I told him my story.

So the governor then instructed that the bridge be expanded so the state government decided to intervene to finish the expansion. I am so happy because it is a life dream come true for my people. As work was even going on, women and old men were coming there to pray for me out of happiness and gratitude. I love that I have been able to achieve that childhood dream.

Tyna told the RoundTable Conversation that besides the applause she has been getting for taking the road less travelled, the management of Sujimoto Construction through their Managing Director, Sijibomi Ogundele has offered to fund the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) form purchase for a hundred students in her constituency. This gladdens her heart as it will bring huge relief to many of her constituents. Obviously altruism in public service comes with a myriad of blessings.

In a country where most politicians never look beyond their personal comfort, the effort of this young female politician is quite admirable. She could as well have decided to go the normal route of  cruising around with her brand new car like most people but she sacrificed that to do what she can with the reconstruction of a bridge she grew uo seeing as a death trap.

Her choice is what leadership is about, the greater good of the greater number. Again,  kudos to those people at her place of work who encouraged her to get into politics in a country with the lowest gender parity in politics globally. She has shown that gender has nothing to do with leadership. She got an opportunity to make a difference in her community and she did.

She is not the first politician from that ward or even the whole of the Ogbia Local government area to access funds for projects and cars, she merely set her priorities differently. That is what is called politics with a purpose. She did not like most politicians in Nigeria think just about her comfort. She went into politics very clear of what visionary leadership can do to people. She did not go into politics as a means of laundering a sagging image or trying to get a better life for herself alone.

As 2023 draws near, it is time for Nigerians to look at the pedigree of politicians that would try to access leadership at all levels. We all want progress and must not be deceived by those who do not have any good intentions. This young lady was trusted by the people that voted for her even when she had no money but only her raw potentials. It just shows that good leadership is not gender or age sensitive.

Tyna’s odyssey gives hope about a new Nigeria where merit would matter in political contest. The political office does not imbue anyone with credibility and passion. You bring your vision and mission to a political office. The bridge Tyna built is according to her a miracle which she says aligns with her name. However, she backed her faith with physical and diligent action laced with sacrifices.

Today, she is the trending politician in Nigeria in the social and orthodox media. People can see through her altruism even as a mere ward councilor. This goes to show that the office does not imbue you with love and fame, your choices and actions are your report sheets with the people. Again, it is very admirable that the governor of her state, her paramount ruler and other politicians supported her putting a lie to some narratives that most men discourage female politicians.  The RoundTable conversation wants more of this collaborative efforts for development.

The dialogue continues…

By Nnedinso Ogaziechi

ONE of the popular rhetoric of politicians during election campaigns in Nigeria is the promise to improve three of the most important sectors in the economy, education, health and infrastructure.  It does not matter that the people never hold successive administrations at all levels to account for failing to improve those sectors.

International donors and global bodies and agencies like the United Nations, the World Bank, IMF and other continental institutions try very to contribute to these sectors given how vital they are to human development in a globalized world.  Bill Gates was in Nigeria a few years ago and decried the fact that after over $2b donations for these sectors to be improved, not much has changed.

The required budgetary allocations for these sectors have always fallen below the global benchmarks.  The education sector seems the worst hit as the United Nations sets a global benchmark of 26% of budgetary allocations but Nigeria has never allocated more than 10% of the annual budget to the education sector. The result is seen in the global record of the percentage of illiteracy in Nigeria. Nigeria has the highest global record of out-of-school children that now stands in excess of 13 million.

The implications of the lack of investment in the education sector are dire as the world depends on ideas and technology to move ahead. Nigerian governments post-civil war had the military ruin the processes that would have laid the solid foundation for the Nigerian education sector.  The successive civilian administrations have not fared better either. While the rest of the world has made huge investments in artificial intelligence and robotics, Nigeria is today on the edge of the precipice as abductions and killing of students seem to have become a pandemic. From Chibok through to other recorded abduction of students especially girls, the future seems grim for the nation.

The RoundTable Conversation sat with Professor Siyan Oyeweso of the Osun State University Osogbo . He is a professor of History and the Executive Director, Center for Black Culture and International understanding Abere Osun state. He is also the Editor-in Chief of African Nebula, a peer-review multi-disciplinary journal and member of a number of academic and cultural bodies across the globe.

We wanted to find out from him the greater implications of the rising cases of school abductions across Nigeria.

To him, abductions in Nigeria in the very recent past is not just a great threat to the education sector, but also to public safety generally.  The care for human lives is at its lowest ebb in Nigerian history and it constitutes the greatest danger to the girl child especially given that a greater number of girls have been abducted in the last few years and some killed, sexually violated and tortured. Note that before the Chibok abductions, girl child education was already at the lowest ebb especially in the Northern region.

The endangerment to girl child in Nigeria has just gone a notch higher. From Chibok to Dapchi, from Dapchi to Zamfara, school of Forestry to Abia state university, how can Nigeria look on in a 21st century while our girls and boys are disenfranchised from getting education? Our governments must invest not only in school safety but in public safety because security engerders maximum productivity for development.

Our focus should be on the empowerment of the girl child because we all know that when you train a girl child, you train a nation. We must protect the future of the girl child by making their lives safer not just in isolation but together with those who are their care givers, their parents and teachers. We must protect Nigerians not just for tomorrow but for today so that Nigerians can have faith in their country.

As a teacher, I have observed that the female students often show greater prospects than the male students. If we scan through the graduation brochures of many tertiary institutions in the country, you notice that a higher percentage of best graduating students are female. This is what I have observed over the years. The female students are more focused, more diligent and less likely to derail or veer off into social habits like taking drugs and sundry criminalities.

The female students are more intelligent, more studious and the results are there to show. The bulk of first class students are female. The boys also need our attention. They have shown the tendency to lean towards the fast lane of wanting riches without due diligence and hard work. They are the ones who are more in the entertainment scene singing about fast lives and cars and other luxury items. It is not that those things are bad but education enhances your chances of being better at whatever you choose to do including entertainment of any kind.

Read Also: Kankara boys and now Kagara

The female students are more of builders while the males tend to be into the rat race to a fast life. You listen to their modern music and they are mostly hyperbolic eulogization of instant wealth and everyone knows that development needs more deliberate planning. You can see that across the world more women are accessing leadership and those countries are doing really well.

The RoundTable Conversation sought the views of another educationist, former Rector and an administrator who had enjoyed her time as a trainer of teachers, Helen Dabup and asked her views about the implication of the abduction of students on the education sector in the country. In her views, beyond the recent unfortunate incidents in schools, Nigeria has been very careless about boarding schools  and residencies in Universities in the country. Those who fashioned boarding schools knew the value that brings to education.

They are supposed to be safe havens and removed from the hustle and bustle of the cities as most of them are cited in rural areas to take advantage of the serenity and ambience of those places for students to concentrate away from their families and other distractions.

Today, governments at all levels have neglected the education sector. Most of the facilities that aid education are absent. The boarding schools do not have secure compounds and the teachers and house masters no longer live and provide security for students. In the past, students were well protected and often educated on how to handle security issues because the teachers and house masters and matrons were living with them.

Today, teachers and other education workers do not have those luxuries and the children are left with incompetent gatemen not trained to provide security in a changing world. So the abductors prey on the students because the leaders are not protecting the education sector as a valuable sector. Teachers who are not well cared for have divided attention as they often seek for alternative means of income. This leaves the students bare of after school care and protection.

The schools have become targets because we have devalued education. The political class has reduced the value of education. Imagine when ‘attempting’ WASCE has become the qualifying benchmark for some political offices in the recent past. Those kinds of politicians can never put value on the core values that come with education.

Our system seems to have lost the value of punishing bad behavior and rewarding excellence. Now we see politicians make excuses for their party members that had shown indiscipline. So children watch all these and tend to copy. We have devalued education over time and   devalued teachers too. There seems to be no due diligence in the training and employment of teachers. People  take up underpaying education jobs due to unemployment and when this happens there cannot be full productivity. This attitude has to change.

Education is a lifetime investment and our governments must realize that. The character of the teacher impacts on the children. Politics is now more financially rewarding so those who can’t get in turn to crime to make it big if they have criminal orientation.

Boarding schools are safer and helps in mentorship for the students. There was a sense of family in boarding schools that was protective.  These days there is no electricity, not much comfort for night prep.  Teachers, students  and parents need to have confidence for education to flourish and achieve its goals. The child must study in a good environment.  The school system is the microcosm of what is happening in the larger society so we must have a huge reorientation to rebuild the education system.

My suggestions are that we should not give up on education. We have to invest more in education. There must maximum security like perimeter fencing, there must be simulation lessons to teach students certain survival skills, infrastructure must be there and  electricity must be provided because  a well-lit environment can scare away criminals. Police stations must be near schools and we must take off more policemen from politicians and big companies  who tend to hijack the few policemen for their own security. Alternatively, schools must have their security and governments must give them licenses to bear arms to protect our children and make them feel confident in schools.

The RoundTable recognizes the grim future of any country with a largely illiterate population. The dangers are multiple. There must be a deliberate effort by Nigerians to begin to elect people who can put the future of the country first. With the greatest number of out-of-school children in the world, the current insecurity in the country and the grim prospects of lack of confidence by parents, teachers and students in the education system is the fastest route to the destruction of the country. Education is the key to development and we can see the difference around the world. Can we put the fate of future generations before partisanship?

The dialogue continues…