The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Ukraine

  • Ukraine support package worth 50b Euro agreed by EU leaders

    Ukraine support package worth 50b Euro agreed by EU leaders

    • Zelensky: 207 captives return from Russia

    The 27 European Union leaders have agreed a €50 billion aid package for Ukraine after Hungary had previously blocked the deal.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the new funding, saying it would strengthen the country’s economic and financial stability.

    Ukraine’s economic ministry said it expects the first tranche of funds in March.

    There had been fears Hungary’s PM would again block the package as he did at a European summit in December.

    Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the EU, had said he wanted to force a rethink of the bloc’s policy towards Ukraine and questioned the idea of committing funds for Kyiv for the next four years.

    The package will help to pay pensions, salaries and other costs over the next four years. It comes as US military aid for Ukraine – the largest provider of military support for Kyiv – is being held up by Congress.

    Many European countries also provide military aid to Ukraine.

    News of the agreement was announced less than two hours after the summit started, surprising many observers who had expected talks to go on much longer due to the depth of disagreement between Mr. Orban and the other EU leaders.

    Agreeing a new package of aid for Ukraine requires the unanimous support of all 27 EU member states, meaning until now Hungary had been able to veto a deal.

    Diplomatic sources told Reuters that the new deal includes a yearly discussion of the package and the option to review it in two years, “if needed”.

    Orban had been pushing for a yearly vote on the package, but this could have left the deal exposed to an annual veto threat from Hungary.

    Read Also: Tinubu to University unions: prioritise dialogue to avoid frequent strikes

    “A good day for Europe,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said on X.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was “grateful” to EU leaders, highlighting that the decision was taken by all 27 heads of state in a united display of support for Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia nearly two years ago. Zelensky also said the package would “strengthen the long-term economic and financial stability” of Ukraine.

    Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had underlined that it was about Europe investing in its own security. He stressed that Ukraine was resisting Russia for everyone – blocking Putin’s attempt to challenge the world order by force.

    Zelensky said 207 Ukrainian captives returned from Russia.

    He thanked the chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Kyrylo Budanov, the President’s Office head, Andriy Yermak, and other officials, for the efforts to free captured Ukrainians.

    Meanwhile, Yermak said on Telegram that the released soldiers served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the National Guard, the State Border Guard Service and the National Police.

    The Kyiv Post had reported that Wednesday’s prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia was the 50th since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    The report likewise indicated that the returned servicemen are 95 representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 56 National Guardsmen, 26 border guards, 29 soldiers of the Territorial Defence and one representative of the National Police of Ukraine.

  • This is the world if Ukraine loses

    This is the world if Ukraine loses

    By Victor Pinchuk

    The White House has announced that by the end of the year funding for supporting Ukraine will run out. The EU has declared that it will miss by a large measure its announced goal of providing Ukraine with 1 million artillery shells by March 2024. These are sober words presaging what I believe will be a devastating failure for the West.

    If Ukraine cannot push Russia back, there will not be a stable stalemate. Russia will throw all it has into “conquering” Ukraine. It will obliterate cities completely, as demonstrated by its conquest of Mariupol, where Russia is estimated to have killed 25,000 people and destroyed 90 percent of residential buildings. That is the Russian way of war. Russia’s army will imprison, torture or kill anyone who refuses to “belong” to Russia. Remember the Bucha massacre? Bucha had 37,000 inhabitants, compared to Ukraine’s 44 million. As Russia advances, 5, 10, 100 or more Buchas may occur.

    Many more Ukrainians will flee if Russia is able to seize more Ukrainian territory. 6.3 million have fled the country as of now. Many work hard in their new place of residence, but European countries incur costs of hundreds of Euro per month for each Ukrainian refugee. Russia’s strategy includes making Ukraine uninhabitable, driving refugees into Europe. If for example 5 million more Ukrainians flee as Russia advances, it would cost Europe billions of Euro more per month additionally, dozens of billions of Euro per year.

    Many Ukrainians will fight. Westerners learned on Feb. 24, 2022, that Ukrainians will risk their lives to remain free. Hundreds of thousands of battle-hardened women and men will be ready to take up a guerilla fight. They are inventive, with many highly educated engineers, inventors, IT specialists. If Russia counters with ever more brutal repression, this will trigger ever more severe guerilla fighting and more refugees.

    Meanwhile Baltic states and Poland will be subject to Russian threats and its hybrid war. It worked out in Ukraine, will be the Kremlin’s logic. Moldova and Georgia could face military aggression.

    At the same time, inside European societies radical and populist parties that sympathize with Russia will gain momentum. Already, in several countries pro-Russian parties have come to positions of power or are running high in the polls now. More will likely join governments if Russia advances in Ukraine and these pro-Russian forces seem to be proven “right.”

    Read Also; Oshiomhole’s reminiscences whet appetite

    With an emboldened aggressive Russia right at the border of the EU, deterrence will be needed far beyond what governments plan now. Defense budgets in Europe during the Cold War averaged 3.5 percent of GDP. Now they are lower than 2 percent in many European countries. Returning to Cold War-levels would mean for the UK $39 billion more per year, for Germany $86 billion, and for France $43 billion. For NATO as a whole to hit 3.5 percent of GDP on defense spending, it would require $410BN more per year.

    And this staggering sum is still nothing against the cost if a hot war between Russia and NATO emerges from Russian hybrid aggression on one of NATO’s Eastern member states. NATO allies will have to defend the attacked, including likely with their own soldiers.

    For sure, if the Kremlin is successful in Ukraine, Russian support for terrorists all over the world would strengthen. As will cooperation with Iran and North Korea. These regimes which use death, terror, and fear at home and abroad, will challenge the West. Every additional crisis that affects the West is good for them (and Russia). And of course China watches if the West defends the rules it proclaims. If the impression is that the West is incapable of resolute and sustainable defense, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan becomes more likely.

    If you are a Western middle-class citizen who values the life you live, the cost of this change of organizing principles of the international system, of the tone and ideology of the world you live in, will be beyond imagination — and it will be very costly for many decades.

    This is the world if Ukraine loses.

    You may think, an armistice now will limit loss of life and Western expenses. But Russia will agree to an “armistice” only as a maneuver to win time, regroup and attack again.

    You may think, then let’s temporarily not defend Ukraine but strengthen our own defense. Russia will be satisfied and turn inward to digest their acquisition. But instead, the impossibility to devour Ukraine will spill blood, suffering and chaos, and this will increase instability all over Europe. And Russia will not turn inward. From the start the Kremlin said, they fight the West. They need a new world order with dictatorship equally strong as freedom and democracy. Ukraine is a cornerstone in the plan, but by no means enough. They speak about this openly.

    So, a decline in Western support for Ukraine will not lessen the cost for the West. It will make the cost for the West skyrocket.

    Ukraine losing is an outcome that must not happen. So you must prevent it. You must help Ukraine win. And you can! Ukraine winning is doable. It will even be comparatively inexpensive.

    During World War II U.S. support for the UK, the Soviet Union and France averaged 4.9 percent of GDP annually. The Korean war cost the US 2.8 percent of GDP annually. The “war on terror” is estimated to have cost the US $8TN. Compare those figures to the 0.3 percent of GDP the U.S. spent until today for Ukraine and 0.4 percent on average that EU member states have spent (and this is including financial and humanitarian aid, not only military support).

    Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. has committed just 3.9 percent of its defense budget on military support for Ukraine. This has thus far kept Russia in check in Europe, prevented many more millions of refugees, and deterred Iran and China.

    I am a Ukrainian. Our heroes at the front fight for our independence. But I am not insisting you make Ukrainian independence your cause, I am just asking you to think through the war in Ukraine from the point of view of your own interests.

    I am tremendously thankful for the gracious, vital support of the U.S., Europe and other friends of Ukraine in the West and beyond for the over the past almost two years.

    And I believe it is in the West’s fundamental self-interest to continue and do more. Do it more quickly (if the West had given last year what it gave now, Ukraine would have beaten back Russia already). We need more artillery shells, tanks, long-range missiles and planes.

    For a small fraction of a percent of Western GDP, and without sending a single soldier into battle, the West can enable Ukraine to keep holding at bay the single greatest security threat to the West and the international order today.

    Then, you will have, for little money, saved your own lives as you want to live them in a world in which the West and its allies are able to robustly defend freedom and security.

    To achieve that by spending only a couple of percentage points of your defense budget is a good deal for you, for Ukraine, and for the world.

    • This article was first published in www.politico.com

  • Ukraine clarifies Russian commander’s alleged death in strike

    Ukraine clarifies Russian commander’s alleged death in strike

    Ukraine’s military has clarified information received about the alleged assassination of Russian Commander Viktor Sokolov, after Moscow released a video that appears to show him alive and well.

    Kyiv claimed on Monday it killed Sokolov, the commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, in an attack on the fleet’s headquarters in occupied Crimea last Friday.

    But, the Russian Ministry of Defence published a video yesterday that appears to show Sokolov participating in a meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and other Russian military leaders.

    Read Also: Real reason Ukraine isn’t ready to join NATO

    Ukraine’s new defence minister Rustem Umerov told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that if Sokolov is dead, “it’s good news for everybody.”

    In an exclusive interview from Kyiv, he neither confirmed nor denied Sokolov had been killed in the strike. “He [Sokolov] is in our temporary occupied territories … he should not be there at all. So, if he’s dead, it’s good news for everybody that we are continuing to de-occupy our territory,” Umerov told Amanpour.

  • Real reason Ukraine isn’t ready to join NATO

    Real reason Ukraine isn’t ready to join NATO

    • By Mark Hannah

    Six of the seven Ukrainian deputy defense ministers were fired last Monday morning. Earlier this month, when President Zelenskyy of Ukraine sacked his defense minister, news reports cited the ministry’s allegations of mishandling military contracting and corruption. This sort of corruption prompted President Biden to state last month that Ukraine was not ready for NATO membership.

    But just a couple days later, at a NATO summit in Vilnius, member countries insisted it was only a matter of time before Ukraine would join the alliance. They even dropped the requirement for Ukraine to abide by a Membership Action Plan – NATO’s rigorous program which ensures aspiring countries meet the alliance’s military, economic and democratic standards. Zelenskyy visits the U.N. General Assembly and White House this week, bringing Ukraine’s NATO aspirations back into the news.

    Pundits cast the war in Ukraine as ground zero of a global struggle between democracy and autocracy. Through its vigorous defense against Russia, they argue, Ukraine is a battle-tested soldier for democracy and thus worthy of NATO membership. Membership will, in turn, reverse the further erosion of Ukraine’s flawed democracy. Or so the argument goes.

    But that argument misses an important distinction: NATO is designed to defend countries which are already democratic, but it’s wholly unequipped to promote democracy within those countries. So Ukraine’s membership in NATO, contrary to the conventional wisdom, wouldn’t bolster the cause of Ukrainian democracy.

    Democracy succeeds when its principles are embraced and manifested in laws, political norms and institutions; and when it is defended by anti-corruption advocates, civil liberties and civil rights organizations, and media freedom groups. Unlike physical territory, democracy can’t be defended with defense pacts, with bombs or bullets, with missiles or minefields.

    The NATO charter might require aspirants to support democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. But it fails to prevent democratic backsliding once countries join the alliance. Member countries Hungary and Turkey are prime examples. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdo?an have presided over the persecution of independent media, the silencing of dissent and the erosion of rule of law. Both have entertained closer ties with Russia amid the war in Ukraine, with Erdo?an recently meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi.

    Despite their democratic backsliding, Hungary and Turkey remain members of the alliance in good standing and have even extracted concessions for stalling Sweden and Finland’s accessions to NATO. The United States might entice these increasingly illiberal allies with arms deals, but NATO is powerless to address the root cause of their obstinance. Hungary says its stonewalling of Sweden’s membership is a response to the European Union’s suspension of billions of dollars of its funds. What is the EU’s reason for the freeze? Hungary’s democratic decline.

    Hungary and Turkey’s slides toward authoritarianism offers a cautionary tale for Ukraine’s membership aspirations.

    A case can be made that NATO isn’t threatened by the presence of a few democratically deficient members. Contrary to the rhetoric of a grand, global struggle between democracies and autocracies, the U.S. often finds common cause with illiberal countries. The U.S. works closely with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, for instance, in fighting violent extremism in the Middle East, and the Philippines hosts American military bases to help the U.S. defend its interests in Asia.

    Read Also: My ambition now is supporting Tinubu to succeed – Yahaya Bello

    That’s a fair counterpoint, but one that opens a can of worms about the strategic logic of the transatlantic alliance structure. After all, if NATO doesn’t exist to defend democracies, what is it for? If member countries signed up to defend only other democracies, will they be less likely to keep their commitment when less democratic countries are admitted? Will countries, such as Georgia, which aspire to membership – while withstanding Russian aggression and struggling to make democratic reforms – begin to think the membership criteria is squishy or hypocritically applied?

    To be sure, Ukraine has made some progress in cleaning itself up, and President Zelenskyy has been more of a reformer than some of his predecessors. News of his personnel purges regularly interrupts battlefield updates. Last summer, Zelenskyy sent waves through Ukraine when he fired his prosecutor general and the head of his security service for “grave failure to perform their duties.” More than 650 cases of treason were then opened. In January, six deputy ministers and five regional administrators were fired for corruption, and recently, Zelensky overhauled all of Ukraine’s regional military recruitment offices after the discovery of embezzlement.

    Zelenskyy takes a hard-line stance against corruption, calling it out as a national scourge. But such a crusade is only necessary in an ailing political system – a system which, to some extent, implicates Zelenskyy as well.

    When Western financial institutions sought independent heads atop Ukraine’s oligarch-run firms, Zelenskyy fired his cabinet for taking the initiative too far. Zelenskyy dismissed his prime minister after he clashed with media tycoon and oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky over appointments at a state-owned electrical company. Kolomoisky’s TV network had helped make Zelenskyy a famous comedian and later gave his presidential campaign preferential coverage. Kolomoisky is under U.S. sanctions, and was charged earlier this month with fraud and money laundering. Zelenksyy’s anti-corruption initiatives, whether sincere or merely performative, are clouded by his closeness to Kolomoisky, and his deference to other oligarchs.

    In July, a Swiss intelligence report observed “authoritarian traits” in Zelenskyy as he tried to push Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko out of contention for Ukraine’s presidential elections in 2024. Citing martial law, Zelenskyy has since canceled the 2024 presidential election.

    Consolidating democracy takes time. Before being admitted in 2020, North Macedonia participated in the Membership Action Plan for more than 20 years. Montenegro spent eight years in the program before its admittance in 2017. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Georgia continue to grapple with fragile democracies, trying to make democratic reforms in pursuit of their membership aspirations.

    Ukraine righteously battles for its territory and survival, and Zelenskyy has valiantly steered his country through devastating conflict. It’s natural that Ukraine would seek NATO membership, as it would enhance the defense of its borders.

    But at what cost? Other analysts have well-articulated the risks of a devastating escalation with Russia, or the threat to the American credibility when the U.S. makes security promises with thin public support. And giving Ukraine NATO membership in the short term removes a powerful incentive for it to strengthen its democracy in the longer term: namely, the promise of (eventual) NATO membership.

    But there’s another risk. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has insisted that it is not an alliance arrayed against Russia but one designed to defend democracy. Admitting Ukraine while it is plagued by democratic shortcomings would further erode NATO’s reputation as a defender of democratic norms. Ultimately, it could be yet another discouraging case study in how NATO can defend democracies from without, but not from within.

    •This article was first published in www.politico.com under the title headline ‘The Real Reason Ukraine Isn’t Ready to Join NATO’

  • Ukraine says special operation troops landed in Crimea

    Ukraine says special operation troops landed in Crimea

    Ukraine says its troops landed in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 and which Kiev says it is committed to retaking.

    Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) carried out the landing as part of a special operation and all tasks were fulfilled, said Andrey Yusov, a spokesman for the agency, on Thursday.

    Russian media reported the attack took place at Cape Tarkhankut, in the far west of Crimea, and that the Ukrainian forces had been repelled.

    According to the Russian news outlets Mash and Shot, which delivers  their reports on the social media platform Telegram, the Ukrainians landed in rubber boats near a campsite.

    Read Also: UBA prepared ahead of Russia-Ukraine war, says ED

    Holidaymakers there were startled by gunshots and explosions, they reported.

    Shots reported, citing Russian intelligence circles, that the crews of four inflatable boats about 15 to 20 men were later killed.

    Yusov denied Ukrainian losses in the course of the commando action and said it was Russian forces who were weakened, although he did not give a precise number of casualties.

    The battlefield claims could not be independently verified.

    (dpa/NAN)

  • Things you need to know about Ukraine vs Nigeria friendly

    The Coaches:

    Both Gernot Rohr who will be leading the Super Eagles and Andriy Shevchenko who will be leading his country men were both former players.

    While Rohr was a former defender who played for four different clubs including Bayern Munich and French Ligue 1 side Bordeaux, his counterpart Andriy Shevchenko was a former striker who equally played for four different clubs including AC Milan and Chelsea.

    Coaching Experience:

    Super Eagles coach Gernot Rohr

    While Rohr’s resume indicate that he has managed seven different clubs and four national teams the current being the Super Eagles, Shevchenko started as National team assistant coach in 2016 and later confirmed as national team coach and has been on the saddle now for three years.

    FIFA Ranking:

    As at July 2019, Ukraine are 25th on the log with 1513 points while Nigeria occupy the 33rd Position with 1481 points.

    Highest world cup record:

    Ukraine best outing was in 2006 in Germany where the Yellow and Blue made it to the Quarterfinals before crashing out following 3-0 defeat by The Azures of Italy.

    Nigeria’s best outings were three time round of 16 finishes in USA 94, France 98 and Brazil 2014.

    Head to Head:

    Ukraine coach Shevchenko

    Tuesday’s tie will be the first meeting of both countries at the senior level. In their last six matches Ukraine won four and drew two against Portugal and Turkeywhile Nigeria won four against Tunisia, South Africa, Cameroon and Guinea all at the last Nations cup in Egypt but losing to Madagascar and Algeria respectively.

    What to expect:  Opportunity for new players in the Eagles’ fold to showcase their skills. Goalkeeper Maduka Okoye, midfielders Joe Aribo, and Anderson Esiti and striker Josh Maja.

    Nigeria’s Squad:

    Goalkeeper: Ikechukwu Ezenwa, Francis Uzoho, Maduka Okoye.

    Defenders: Leon Balogun, William Troost-Ekong, Brian Idowu, Jamiliu Collins.

    Midfielders: Joe Aribo, Anderson Esiti, Oghenekaro Etebo, Alex Iwobi.

    Forwards: Victor Osimhen, Samuel Chukwueze, Josh Maja, Paul Onuachu, Dennis Bonaventure, Samuel Kalu, Moses Simon.

  • Ukraine votes comedian as president

    IT was an astounding victory. Volodymyr Zelensky, a Ukrainian Jew, lawyer, actor and comedian, won the country’s 2019 presidential election by a landslide. Incredibly, he took more than 73 percent of the votes in the runoff election. In a country historically pockmarked by anti-Semitism, especially during World War II, it is remarkable that his Jewish ancestry and comedian identity were no impediments for a country on the throes of war with Russia, their powerful and unsmiling neighbour and foe, to vote him as president. Quite literally, everyone was left really gobsmacked. Some 39 candidates had participated in the first round of the poll. Mr Zelensky took a little over 30 percent of the votes. In the runoff, however, he beat the incumbent, Petro Poroshenko, who took a measly 25 percent. The victory was definitive.

    Mr Zelensky, a popular comic, played president in a TV sitcom the “Servant of the People”, a television character who transformed from an ordinary teacher to a corruption-busting president. It is not clear whether his role play was so persuasive as to make him electable, but most analysts think that Mr Poroshenko lost the election, much more than the 41-year-old challenger won, because the 53-year-old president seemed powerless to do anything about the corruption that had bedevilled the system and made it inoperable and ineffective for years.

    Mr Zelensky is undoubtedly inexperienced. The mere fact that he was a comedian in a series that saw a nobody transformed into a corruption-fighting president makes it doubly amusing that voters would entrust their country, badly unnerved by Russian annexations, including the annexation of the well-known Eastern Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk, to his hands. For a comedian with no political experience whatsoever, the issues he will have to contend with in the coming months will strain his acting skills and subject the myth his television carrier has woven around him to inordinate pressures. Many will scoff at his election, but as recent history has shown, it is really not unprecedented.

    In 2017, Emmanuel Macron, also 41-year-old, won election in a manner that upended political calculations in both France and Europe. He was thought to be inexperienced; but he has soldiered on admirably, despite the chequered yellow vests protest movement. In 2003, actor Arnold “The Terminator” Schwarzenegger spectacularly won the California recall governorship election despite widespread fears he might be unable to transcend the flimsiness and superficiality of Hollywood. He went on to serve two terms and performed creditably. In 1998, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, a wrestler (WWF) and actor, also won the Minnesota governorship election to become the 38th governor despite being an entertainer. He, however, declined to seek re-election in 2003. With the exception of Mr Macron, all the rest were entertainers. But they won elections handsomely and were no pushovers in politics and governance.

    At bottom, there is of course nothing unusual about entertainers winning presidential polls. Some of them are well educated, as Mr Zelensky, a lawyer, shows. To focus exclusively on their entertainment  backgrounds, and to treat entertainment disdainfully, is to completely miss the point and draw inaccurate conclusions. The leitmotif of these electoral victories by entertainers is the supreme self-belief which they exuded. They dreamt it, believed it, and fought to bring it about. More importantly, who could fail to notice how quaintly Mr Zelensky reconciled playing a character on television and going on to assume that role in real life?

    The human mind is incredibly strong and inventive. When the great religions urge individuals to watch their thoughts and words, it is because they have long recognised the sheer transcendental quality and power of words and thoughts. Words are spirits, and they are life. They are harbingers or forerunners of physical realities. Mr Zelensky acted the role of a teacher turned by both political and historical sleight of hand into a president. Who could tell how intensely the Ukrainian president-elect believed and dreamt that transmutation? In any case, acting became, for him, a medium for transposing reality. He merely keyed into that reality.

  • Comedian Zelenskiy keeps Ukraine presidential poll lead

    Comic actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political novice who plays a fictional president in a popular TV series, has kept his lead in Ukraine’s presidential election race, opinion poll published on Thursday showed.

    The poll by research body Reiting showed Zelenskiy on 57.9 per cent of votes and incumbent Petro Poroshenko on 21.7 per cent.

    Reiting polled 3,000 voters in all regions, except annexed Crimea, from April 12 to April 16.

    READ ALSO: East Ukraine separatists seek union with Russia

    The previous poll made by Reiting in April 5 to April 10 gave Zelenskiy 61 per cent of votes while Poroshenko received 24 per cent.

    Poroshenko and Zelenskiy will meet in the second round of Ukraine’s presidential election, which will take place on April 21.

    Zelenskiy won almost twice as many votes as Poroshenko in the first round, on March 31.

  • Ukraine to the rescue

    •Sokoto’s decision to send 50 indigenes to Ukraine to study medicine is commendable.  But the state should develop the capacity to train even more at home

    A post-inauguration speech of Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State in 2015 was remarkable in one sense. He had promised to declare a state of emergency in the education sector of the state. This he did, given Sokoto’s high illiteracy level. He started off in his first term by sending a bill to the state House of Assembly making education compulsory and a punishable offence for parents that err in this regard.

    He also surpassed the UNESCO benchmark of 26 per cent budgetary allocation to the education sector in 2016. He invested in teachers by retraining and recruiting qualified ones to reduce the high student/teacher ratio, thereby improving learning. He equally invested in incentives to encourage more girls to go to school, at some point offering cash rewards to those who sustain the idea of going and staying in school. He had partnered with some development partners like United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).

    However, the governor’s attempts at improving education in his state with investments in school infrastructure and human development seem not to be enough to give the state the trained manpower it needs. No news from the state validates this assertion more than the recent news that 50 students of the state origin would be sent to Ukraine to study various aspects of medical sciences. According to the Chairman of the Sokoto State Scholarship Board, Altine Shehu Kajiji, sponsoring the 50 students is part of the 200 scholarships that Governor Tambuwal promised the people. He said that some other students had gone to India, Ghana and Sudan.

    While the acquisition of education is a laudable venture, we feel that given the education challenges in the Northern region, especially Sokoto, the foreign exchange being spent in other countries can actually be used to equip more schools or even build some modern ones to serve more people in the state.

    Sending 200 people to foreign universities is not really a bad idea, but given the little resources available to the state, it might have been more economically valuable to improve the infrastructure in Sokoto and hire some good hands to train the students, thus making it a more sustainable project.

    However, we still commend the governor’s efforts to train more students in the medical sciences because of the dire need of such professionals in that part of the country. The socio-religious leaning of the people makes it difficult for the men to allow male doctors to attend to their female children and wives. We therefore hope that this guides the selection of those being sent abroad to study so that they can come back and contribute to the very needy health sector in the state, especially as it concerns women’s health.

    It is also important for the government to ensure that merit be the criterion for selection because there had been instances where children of politicians and other influential people that can afford the fees are still the ones selected for scholarships.

    We also advise that while the foreign scholarships are commendable, more emphasis should be on getting children to acquire the basic education in the state. The almajiri education system must be quickly overhauled and better funded to make it more impactful. Even though in comparative terms, girl-child education in Sokoto is seemingly better than most other northern states, it is still below average. We therefore advise the government to intensify campaigns on girl-child education.

    The idea of sending a few students of medical sciences abroad should not be seen as a great leap in the education sector of any state because the number is too negligible in comparative terms when put side by side the educational needs of any state.

    We therefore hope that the government is not embarking on this for any temporary political capital, as has been seen in some other states and even at the federal level, where many students so sent are left without the needed financial support, in ways that often force them to depend on the benevolence of either unprepared relations or even the host countries. Let their needs be met so that they can be motivated enough to achieve their aim and come back and contribute to the development of the state.

  • Breaking: Poland 2019: Nigeria draw USA, Qatar, Ukraine

    Adeyinka Akintunde

     

    The Flying Eagles of Nigeria have been grouped alongside Ukraine, Qatar and the United States of America at the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Poland.

    The tournament will begin on May 23, 2019 and end on June 15, 2019 and will be held across six venues in Poland.

     

    Details Later……