The just concluded yearly summit of the United Nations General Assembly saw Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary General submitting a report which lamented the worsening global poverty, stating that the near poor are becoming poorer.”
In the report which Ban Ki Moon titled as “voiles of the vulnerable; the economic crisis from the ground up revealed,” that Nigeria and other sub-Sahara African countries, have the highest percentage of their populations descending in poverty line.
The most surprising part of this report of the United Nations Secretary General is the inclusion of Nigeria as a country which has a high percentage of it’s population as poor.
The report is quite shocking especially in reference to Nigeria with it’s huge God-given natural resources that abounds in every nook and cranny of the nation.
For Nigeria to be consistently mentioned at global rating as one of the countries in which it’s citizens go to bed hungry is to me an anathema, when at the same we are being mentioned as a nation with one of the highest deposit of crude oil.
Though this is not the first time such bad report is coming about Nigeria. But this is quite shocking after all the efforts (which are quite pseudo) which past and present governments have put to fight poverty in the country. If one decides to name all the programmes and policies which have been initiated in the country to fight poverty by deferent regimes this page of the newspaper will not contain them. But what can we take from them as benefits when the UN report says those that were “Near poor” before are now poor while the poorer before are descending lower and lower down in the scale of poverty line?
In this same obscure situation in Nigeria a select few has become millionaires overnight just because they have access to the nation’s treasury as citizens of the nation are wallowing in poverty and penury.
Though when this report was given President Yar’adua was not present, but I belief by now he must have been briefed by his Foreign Affairs Minister on the outcome of the summit, why is it that he has remained silent over the matter when other good countries whose names where mentioned as poor are doing everything within their power to reverse the trend.
The president and other relevant agencies in charge of solving this problem are remaining mute, thinking that the problem will fix itself up. How can it be solved when government officials shun all coincidental and moral issues while swallowing huge sums of money meant for poverty alleviation programmes. How can it end, when some officials of the government without any sense of decency diverts loans meant for the poor to their personal account? How can it end, when the poor who are supposed to challenge these cabal of leaders to put an end to this shameful situation, are the ones singing their praises after a meager coin have been slipped on their fingers for daily and installment survival.
Poverty is the shirt you wear, sometimes unknowingly. A millionaire surrounded by thousands of poverty-stricken neighbours is poor by all standard because if I may ask, how will the millionaires relate these neighbours? I will leave that for you to answer.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
RETURN OF SCHOOLS TO OWNERS (MISSION).
There has been an unending stream of questions as to what is wrong with our educational system. The decadence in the system has nose-dived into a worrisome dimension. But the answers to these questions are not far-fetched. Before independence, the standard was high; that was why standard six of those days were higher than the degree from today’s universities.
However, some years after independence the system began to lose its texture, in terms of standards, organization, discipline, and policies. This was because there was a departure from the ideologies of the missions who owned a majority of the schools. Those who had the foundation of the decadence and eventual collapse of the entire system began to advocate for the return of the schools to their former owners. Even the missions agitated for the return, but their requests were not granted.
The truth of the entire matter is that, over time, the policies that had been put in place had never been effective. Right from the primary to the tertiary level, government has failed, both in policy formation and execution. Though there has been a lot of monetary investment by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), but all of these have not paid off because of corruption.
Years back, the government came up with the 6-3-3-4 system of education, which would have been the best system of education for the Nation, but, as usual, we make policies, but never put the structures in place to affect them.
All of this, no doubt, necessitated the hue and cry over the return of schools to missions. Taking over the schools is not the problem, but how does the state government intend to measure up in running the system? The nation has uncountable public schools out of which less than two percent is advocating to be returned to their former owners.
The problem is not the imbalance, but about the readiness of some of the states in the nation to foot the bill? Few other states have since returned schools to their owners. A point of reference is Enugu State were the owners of the schools see to the day-to-day running of the schools, in terms of structure, organization, discipline and other things, while the government pays the teachers’ salaries.
The state government of every state should be able to assist in making sure that materials needed by these schools are provided. It should not just look the other way and say to your tent o missions.
However, some years after independence the system began to lose its texture, in terms of standards, organization, discipline, and policies. This was because there was a departure from the ideologies of the missions who owned a majority of the schools. Those who had the foundation of the decadence and eventual collapse of the entire system began to advocate for the return of the schools to their former owners. Even the missions agitated for the return, but their requests were not granted.
The truth of the entire matter is that, over time, the policies that had been put in place had never been effective. Right from the primary to the tertiary level, government has failed, both in policy formation and execution. Though there has been a lot of monetary investment by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), but all of these have not paid off because of corruption.
Years back, the government came up with the 6-3-3-4 system of education, which would have been the best system of education for the Nation, but, as usual, we make policies, but never put the structures in place to affect them.
All of this, no doubt, necessitated the hue and cry over the return of schools to missions. Taking over the schools is not the problem, but how does the state government intend to measure up in running the system? The nation has uncountable public schools out of which less than two percent is advocating to be returned to their former owners.
The problem is not the imbalance, but about the readiness of some of the states in the nation to foot the bill? Few other states have since returned schools to their owners. A point of reference is Enugu State were the owners of the schools see to the day-to-day running of the schools, in terms of structure, organization, discipline and other things, while the government pays the teachers’ salaries.
The state government of every state should be able to assist in making sure that materials needed by these schools are provided. It should not just look the other way and say to your tent o missions.
GOVERNOR UDUAGHAN DEFEATS GREAT OGBORU AGAIN IN ELECTION TRIBUNAL.
The Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Asaba, the Delta State capital, has thrown away the petition of Chief Great Ogboru, which challenged the election of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan.
The five-man panel, which was led by Justice B.S Mohammed, while delivering its 20-page judgment last week Monday, ruled that Chief Ogboru, who contested the governorship election on the platform of the Democratic Peoples’ Party (DPP), had failed to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the election that brought in Uduaghan was surrounded with irregularities, and, so, the court thereby dismissed the case in favour of Dr. Uduaghan.
Chief Ogboru had earlier asked a tribunal which was led by Justice Lokulo Shodikpe to nullify the election of Uduaghan on the grounds that the poll by INEC was filled with rigging and ballot box stuffing. According to him, the election, supposedly conducted on the April 14, 2008, did not hold in all the 25 local government areas because electoral materials did not get to the various local government areas, called on the INEC to conduct fresh election for the governorship office in Delta State.
Justice Mohammed, while delivering judgment, stated that the burden of proof lies with the petitioners to show that the election did not take place and that the court could not adduce evidence to prove that there was no voting in the state, adding that the argument of the petitioner appeared not to have met the required standards of law.
Speaking further, he pointed out that there was discrepancy in the statement of oath tendered by the prosecution witnesses as it appeared that it was not made by the deponents.
In his words, “the petitioners were given all the opportunity to prove their cases in the open court, but then this can hardly be said to be the fault of the respondents. The petition had been riddled with bundle of missed opportunities by the petitioners that if taken at the appropriate time may have swung the petition to their advantage. They even failed to seize the opportunity offered them by this tribunal to sort out the tender electoral documents in open court and tender those relevant documents relevant to their cases, but they rather preferred to apply for discharge of the document and later found themselves in a tight corner.”
In his reaction,councel to Ogboru,Mr. Nicholas Icheor, said that having regard to the need to defer to the process, they are bound by the judgment and that the petitioners would definitely take a closer look at the judgment and decide on what to do next.
Counsel to Uduaghan, Babiru Turaki, described the judgment as sound and comprehensive.
Meanwhile, Chief Great Ogboru, who spoke through his younger brother, Mr. Tunna Ogboru, at the court premises, described the judgment as a miscarriage of justice and promised that they were going to the Court of Appeal to challenge the judgment.
The five-man panel, which was led by Justice B.S Mohammed, while delivering its 20-page judgment last week Monday, ruled that Chief Ogboru, who contested the governorship election on the platform of the Democratic Peoples’ Party (DPP), had failed to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the election that brought in Uduaghan was surrounded with irregularities, and, so, the court thereby dismissed the case in favour of Dr. Uduaghan.
Chief Ogboru had earlier asked a tribunal which was led by Justice Lokulo Shodikpe to nullify the election of Uduaghan on the grounds that the poll by INEC was filled with rigging and ballot box stuffing. According to him, the election, supposedly conducted on the April 14, 2008, did not hold in all the 25 local government areas because electoral materials did not get to the various local government areas, called on the INEC to conduct fresh election for the governorship office in Delta State.
Justice Mohammed, while delivering judgment, stated that the burden of proof lies with the petitioners to show that the election did not take place and that the court could not adduce evidence to prove that there was no voting in the state, adding that the argument of the petitioner appeared not to have met the required standards of law.
Speaking further, he pointed out that there was discrepancy in the statement of oath tendered by the prosecution witnesses as it appeared that it was not made by the deponents.
In his words, “the petitioners were given all the opportunity to prove their cases in the open court, but then this can hardly be said to be the fault of the respondents. The petition had been riddled with bundle of missed opportunities by the petitioners that if taken at the appropriate time may have swung the petition to their advantage. They even failed to seize the opportunity offered them by this tribunal to sort out the tender electoral documents in open court and tender those relevant documents relevant to their cases, but they rather preferred to apply for discharge of the document and later found themselves in a tight corner.”
In his reaction,councel to Ogboru,Mr. Nicholas Icheor, said that having regard to the need to defer to the process, they are bound by the judgment and that the petitioners would definitely take a closer look at the judgment and decide on what to do next.
Counsel to Uduaghan, Babiru Turaki, described the judgment as sound and comprehensive.
Meanwhile, Chief Great Ogboru, who spoke through his younger brother, Mr. Tunna Ogboru, at the court premises, described the judgment as a miscarriage of justice and promised that they were going to the Court of Appeal to challenge the judgment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)