Governors from the Southeast zone yesterday condemned the relocation of Boko Haram suspects to Ekwulobia Prisons in Anambra state.
They noted that the presence of the terror suspects in the region was creating tension and fear and urged the federal government to relocate them to Abuja “where there is security”
The governors might have been referring to the series of protests in Anambra state by traders and some community leaders over the relocation of the prisoners to the state.
The governors met yesterday in Owerri, the Imo State capital.
Apart from host Goveror Rochas Okorocha. In attendance were Governors Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu) and Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia).
Ebonyi State Governor Dave Umahi was represented by Deputy Governor Kelechi Igwe.
Anambra State Governor Willie Obiano was “unavoidably absent” according to Okorocha.
The Imo State governor told reporters after the meeting that lasted for about two and a half hours deliberated on the possible consequences of the relocation of the Boko Haram suspects and concluded that it was not in the best interest of the zone.
He said though the decision was purely a security matter, it has far-reaching effect on the psyche of the people in the zone. “We are appealing to the Federal Government to have a rethink on the relocation of the Boko Haram suspects. If there is any place they should be relocated to it should be Abuja where they have enough security. The issue is already creating security concern in the zone”.
He however ruled out any plan by the governors to recall Igbo in the troubled North, stressing that, “we are all part of the entity called Nigeria and we share in the plight of our brothers in the North East, so it is not the issue of recalling the Igbo in any part of the country but to make sure that they are secured anywhere they find themselves”.
The Forum according to him, also deliberated on the fate of the Igbo displaced in the North as a result of the insurgency and appealed to the Federal Government to adequately compensate them.
Other decisions by the governors are that Enugu State should remain the capital of the Southeast and the meeting point of the Southeast Governors’ Forum.
According to him: “We have met today and agreed to work together as governors from the Southeast zone to combat security challenges confronting the zone, especially kidnapping, armed robbery and baby factory. We are going to write the Federal Government to adequately equip security operatives in the zone to ensure adequate security in the zone”.
He said the Forum had agreed to build an economic hub in the zone to boost trade, which he said is the main occupation of the people: “We have looked at the current economic situation in the country and how it affects our people who are majorly traders and we have decided to build an economic hub in the zone and a committee was set up for that and it is headed by the Abia state governor”.
He said that the South East governors have come to realize the need for them to come together and work in the overall interest of the people of the zone since the period of politics had come and gone and what is now left is service delivery to the people of the area.
The governors disowned Radio Biafra and said the Radio in question does not have the endorsement of the SouthEast governors. And that the security agencies would do their job.
Okorocha also said the South East governors have resolved to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari to catalogue what the administration will do for the people of South East zone
The Forum also agreed to create an economic hub. A committee to work on it will be chaired by the Abia State governor.
Government College, formerly Provincial Secondary School, Katsina, which Muhammadu Buhari, the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate, graduated from in 1961, has released Mr. Buhari’s secondary school certificate examination results.
The results, obtained exclusively by PREMIUM TIMES Wednesday, confirm Mr. Buhari’s claim that he undertook the University of Cambridge West African School Certificate Examinations and obtained five credits in English Language, Geography, Hausa Language, History, and Health Science.
PREMIUM TIMES obtained the computer printout from Cambridge University as well as a statement of result, signed by the current principal of Katsina College, dated January 21, 2015.
The results show that Mr. Buhari, a former military head of state, failed in Mathematics and Woodwork, and had a pass in Literature in English.
The examination centre number was 8280, while Mr. Buhari’s candidate number was 002.
The statement of results is printed on the letter head paper of the Katsina State Ministry of Education, and it shows that the examination took place in 1961.
The Cambridge print out also shows the result of 17 other candidates at the centre, including Shehu Yar’Adua, a former Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters.
Controversy over Mr. Buhari’s result escalated Tuesday after the Nigerian Army, which had earlier admitted to having copies of his certificate, reversed itself, saying it could not even attest to the details listed in his records.
The spokesperson of the Army, Olajide Laleye, said “Neither the original copy, certified true copy (CTC) nor statement of result of Major-.Gen. Mohammadu Buhari‘s WASC result is in his personal file.”
He said while it is the practice in the Nigerian Army that before candidates are shortlisted for commissioning into the officers’ cadre of the service, the selection board verifies the original copies of credentials as presented, “There is no available record to show that this process was followed in the 1960s.”
The military’s comments came after the retired general had said that his lost copies of results were with the Army, an explanation he gave ahead of elections February 14.
Mr. Buhari expressed shock at the claim and told the media in Kano, Wednesday, that he had given the controversy no serious thought until the intervention by the military.
He emphasised at a briefing that started behind schedule that he indeed sat for the Cambridge West African Examination, alongside Mr. Yar’adua, and Umar Abdullahi, a former President of the Court of Appeal.
“My examination number was 8200002, and I undertook the examination together with some prominent Nigerians including, late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, and former President of Court of Appeal, Umar Abdullahi,” the former military leader said.
He said since his disclosure that he had lost the original copies of his academic documents, he had all along assumed his records with the Military Secretary, a position he once occupied for years, remained intact.
“But to my utmost surprise I was told that although the records of my certificate are available but there are no copies of my certificates in my file,” Mr. Buhari said.
“I consented to this press conference because of the concern of my supporters and well-meaning Nigerians on the issue at stake, otherwise I will treat it for what it is: pure mischief. I wouldn’t have considered it an issue worth the nation’s while.”
Mr. Buhari challenged the Nigerian media to undertake a special investigative Journalism on the issue so that they will uncover the truth behind the allegations.
He repeatedly accused the ruling PDP of stirring the controversy to divert public attention from the critical issues of insecurity, corruption and economic woes, facing the nation.
“And although the ruling party may want to wish this away, the issue in this campaign cannot be my certificate which I obtained 53 years ago,” he said. “The issues are the scandalous level of unemployment of millions of our young people, the state of insecurity, the pervasive official corruption which has impoverished our people and the lack of concern of the government for anything other than the retention of power at all costs.”
By Tabia Princewill
I AM aware that by the time this article is published, I will most probably be inundated with emails asking me to clarify my position. So I will do my best to do so from the onset.
In the Western world, a university degree has long been the prerequisite for gaining middle class status. Indeed, in the United States, for example, the affluence of baby boomers and their children was correlated to getting a degree and an office job, which in many African countries today remains the norm.
President Barack Obama has called higher education “an economic imperative” as statistically, those who graduate with a university degree make several times more than those who graduate with a school certificate for example and this is true in many countries. However, in Nigeria, over the years, qualifications have become a mere symbol and having a degree in many parts of Africa does not necessarily mean that one has gotten an education.
Students are presented with paper qualifications at the end of their courses but remain bereft of even the most basic skills one would need to work and survive in an ever-competitive and global work place. So, this raises the question: What then is the point of a university degree? We need to rethink the point and purpose of many of our tertiary institutions which churn out half baked alumni with often zero chances of ever getting an entry level job, let alone progressing to much else. I remember how much Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s commitment to opening a university in every state of the federation was celebrated at the time by those who the point of a real education eludes, and who also do not understand that quality beats quantity any day.
Half the universities in Nigeria today are not viable institutions: the teaching one receives at many universities would not pass as a secondary school course in other climes. Yes, the truth hurts and we must be willing to acknowledge painful truths so that we can empower young Nigerians to grow and achieve. But how can they when most exams in Nigeria are not based on testing students’ ability to analyse or discuss but on their capacity to retain lengthy information, like any computer or robot could?
Furthermore, the states many universities are located in are barely viable themselves, unable to pay salaries, creating little wealth and development, adding even less value. It is more important, in Nigeria, to pay public officers salaries than to develop and empower those who elect them. In France, for instance, to reduce the cost of governance in several regions, their governments and administrators will be merged into larger, singular bodies which will not stop government from reaching the people, or from delivering on the quality of life citizens deserve.
On the opposite end I fear we in Nigeria will not stop creating states and universities until there is one state per ethnic group and one university per street corner! Having more universities looks good on paper, but in a country where education is already so poorly funded, we would do well to consolidate the few functioning universities we have rather than encouraging the ad hoc creation of new and unfortunately irrelevant ones. But let’s get back to the contentious issue of who should attend said universities.
The truth is that with so many young people in university, the value of degrees is lessened, grades are inflated and trades are understated. In many industrialised nations (e.g. the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, etc.) barely a quarter, or 25% of the population goes to university as more and more people learn a trade. In good African fashion, I must admit my brief surprise when a plumber in the UK complained to me about his mortgage.
The idea of a plumber in Nigeria being able to afford a mortgage isn’t something many can unfortunately contemplate. Learning a trade in Nigeria is hardly the preferred option, no matter one’s social class as there is little dignity of labour in our country. So, every year the Nigerian Law School produces thousands of lawyers the economy and the society does not need. More than half of the class of 2013 is still searching for a job and every new batch simply adds itself to the melee and one finds 30-year-olds who have never held down a job.
I am not calling for universities to become elite enclaves which only the rich can either afford or aspire to. However, I am indeed asking that vocational training and skills acquisition becomes a real agenda for government (beyond Jonathan’s simplistic purchase of stoves for women). A young person’s potential is realisable in so many different ways and if our education were more practical, less theoretical, the high failure rates in some of our universities would be lessened, as some students would realise their calling or aptitude is perhaps more suited towards learning a trade. Why does Nigeria import deep sea divers in the oil and gas industry therefore helping Asian experts make huge salaries when Nigerians could be trained for that purpose?
There are huge and undiscovered job and entrepreneurship opportunities if government would create not just an enabling environment but prepare students from secondary school to understand what the world requires of them in terms of values, attitudes and skills. One last point I would like to make is about parents: studies show that many cognitive and non-cognitive skills are hereditary.
The children of successful, affluent parents are almost predestined (I don’t often like or use the word as I believe the power of human agency supersedes any inevitability) to do well. So we must rescue parents of school-age children in disadvantaged regions as their own understanding of education also determines their children’s success. Even some rich Nigerians would rather push their daughters to get married than get an MBA but that’s a topic for another day perhaps. Ideally, we should want every Nigerian to go to university but given the few jobs available in the sectors Nigerians typically study for , it might not be such a wise investment or public policy to pursue.
We need more realism and less utopia in our public discourse so we can find work for those already out of school and create a society where paper qualifications are not the beginning and the end of a better life.
Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir
Wanted by the International Criminal Court, ICC, for years, Omar Al Bashir yet again, evaded the international justice system as many in the African Union and Nigeria, believe the ICC witch hunts African leaders. I wonder if the child soldiers and destitute Sudanese Al Bashir has used and sacrificed would be of the same opinion.
It is always so difficult in Africa for us to strongly, in one voice, condemn wrong doing: we view every criticism as an attack, especially when there is clear evidence of immoral, unacceptable actions. Take the Nigerian Army’s response to Amnesty International’s claims of unspeakable violence wrought upon innocent civilians. Those who have nothing to hide do not fear investigation.
Africans are refugees in their own countries, dying on the Mediterranean in their quest for decent lives, yet, we in the pages of newspapers, in our private conversations, defend these callous leaders.
Buhari and oil subsidy
Many reports say the President is about to remove subsidy and commentators ask why Nigerians support this now and resisted it under Jonathan. The answer for me is simple: many did not trust the former administration to use the savings adequately.
But if rumours of free education and social services under this new government are anything to go by, it is no wonder Nigerians do not seem ready to fight government on this.
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/06/should-everyone-go-to-university/#sthash.qKAwbgd1.dpuf
