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The Akwa Ibom State governor, Godswill
Akpabio, on Thursday, said that the first primary election, which he
won as the governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party
(PDP) in the state was annulled by the national leadership of the party
because some aspirants were given late clearance to contest.

Mr Akpabio stated this while speaking with journalists at the PDP national secretariat in Abuja.

The ruling party had two weeks ago cancelled the state governorship primaries held on January 9 and ordered a re-run.

“The first primaries we did on the
9th. Some people complained that they were given late clearance. The
Primaries was on the 9th of January and some people were given late
clearance as late as 11pm on the 8th of January and when they came, the
panel did not allow them to take part so the party felt that to ensure
fairness and equity, there was need to annul the entire exercise and
order for a rerun and that was what they did and so we went for a rerun
on the 15th,” he said.

“ And you need to understand the fact
that the case that somebody talked about came up for a mention for the
first time on Monday this week. So there was no injunction; there was
nothing like that; it is just a rumour and people like to peddle
rumours in order to create anxiety in the public.” Mr Akpabio assured
that he is ready to reconcile with those who contested against him in
the primary election. According to him, he is already talking to some
of them so as to join him to move the state forward.

“My doors are open,” he said. “I don’t
want to call them opponents. I would like to call them my colleagues.
They are my fellow party men; the doors are open, I’ve already started
talking with them, I discuss with them on phone. I’ve met with one of
them for about two three hours so we are discussing. Everybody that
wants to join me in moving the state forward why not? We are to take
the state to the next level and it is better to do it in unity. I
believe strongly that everything will be alright in few days.” Mr
Akpabio said the PDP will win all the elections in Akwa Ibom State not
only because the party is popular but also because his administration
has performed in the last three years.

He said, “I reassure the Party that
Akwa-Ibom will return 100 percent for the party. If you look around the
entire country, it is important for you to come to Akwa-Ibom and see
what the PDP government has been able to do in the last three and half
years of my stewardship and so we are not going into election with
empty hands; we are going into election with a record of performance; a
record of very credible, feasible infrastructure for you to see.

When you come there the story is totally different and I think there
is a lot to be learnt from Akwa-Ibom State. So the PDP is safe in
Akwa-Ibom.” He concluded.

Chidinma Abamen, a
nursing mother, said she was rudely awakened from sleep on Tuesday
morning by two young girls who usually sold yams and plantain to her in
the evenings. “I was surprised to see them at my doorstep early in the
morning,” she said. “They usually sell to me only in the evenings but
because they can’t go to school, they have to hawk to support their
parents.”

Mrs Abamen added
that seeing the children hawking when they should be in school is
disturbing, and would adversely affect their studies when they resume.
“I feel bad about it because I am a mother myself and it’s unfair for a
child to be doing this when he or she should be learning,” she said.
“The break has gone for too long and if it doesn’t stop soon, it would
affect the children badly. Some of them have even started forgetting
their books.”

Child hawkers increase

In the past three
weeks, the streets of Lagos have been filled with an increased number
of children being used in different kinds of labour; a situation which
has become worrisome to residents. The compulsory closure of primary
and secondary schools in the country by the federal government for the
period of the ongoing voter registration has resulted in more children,
especially among the low-income group, being pushed to the streets to
earn an income for their parents and keep them busy.

Consequently, this
has exposed them to crime, accidents and other vices. While some
private schools have begun to ignore the federal government’s directive
and have started opening their doors to their pupils, students of
public schools are left with no options. Most of them, therefore,
contribute the majority of child hawkers in Lagos streets.

Keeping them engaged

A vegetable trader
at Obalende Market, who identified herself as Mrs Mogaji, said she was
forced to bring her two daughters, students of Aunty Ayo Girls
Secondary School, to the market with her everyday to assist her in
attending to her customers. “I’m not happy that they are at home but
they have to support the family so they must work,” she said.

Sola Ajagbe, a
12-year-old boy, said he goes to his uncle’s workshop everyday to learn
how to fix deflated and spoilt tyres. He said his parents forced him to
learn the work early in the year when they found out about the extended
break. “My uncle is a vulcanizer, so I go to his place to learn work
everyday,” he said. “I want to go back to school. I don’t like the
work.”

Onyebuchi Iheama, a
Junior Secondary 2 student of Aguda Grammar School, Surulere, explains
her daily routine. “I start in the morning around 8 O’clock and I will
be selling,” he said. “When the sun comes out, I will go and rest and I
will continue again around 4 when the sun has gone down. The lesson is
too expensive and my parents cannot pay for it so I’ve not been reading
since we closed school last year.”

Too long for the kids

A mathematics
teacher of a public secondary school in Lagos, who did not want to be
named, complained that it would be difficult to bring the students back
on track in their studies when the schools resume.

“By the time we
resume, it would be so difficult to teach those students,” he said.
“Ordinarily, they play a lot during the holidays, and it takes time for
them to settle back to their studies. But this time around, it’s more
than holidays. Most of them would have forgotten what they learnt last
year and it is not good for them at all. We don’t need this kind of
backwardness in our educational system. The government should call the
students back to school.”

Also, Gabriel Ogunrinde, a father of two, expressed his fears that
if the voter registration exercise is extended, the students would be
at home for a much longer period. “So many people are agitating for an
increase in the voter registration exercise for obvious reasons,” he
said. “I agree with them but I hope this doesn’t mean the students
would still remain at home.”

The second batch of former militants
from the Niger Delta, prepared for the federal government’s
rehabilitation exercise to be held at the National Vocational Training
Institute, Ghana, were on Thursday unveiled in Lagos prior to their
departure.

According to delegates from the Niger
Delta Amnesty Programme, the 212 former militants will undergo training
in wielding and fabrication techniques, and are expected to acquire
skills and knowledge aimed at empowering them both economically and
mentally. “We are very much on course and today’s gathering is premised
on the need to present to Nigerians through the media the second batch
of delegates set to travel offshore for vocational training,” said
Kingsley Kuku, the new Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta
Affairs. “Just last month, on the 8th of December 2010 to be precise,
38 transformed ex-militants were deployed to South Africa for
vocational training in marine related courses. This was the first set
of trainees to be deployed offshore in the ongoing reintegration phase
of the amnesty programme.”

Making them useful

According to Mr Kuku, the training will
take place in six different city locations in Ghana: Kumasi, Winnaba,
Kokomemele (Accra), Takoradi, Abetifi, and Biriwa. The campaign began
more than a year and half ago after the militants were pardoned and
granted amnesty by late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Mr Kuku added
that a critical success factor of the amnesty initiative depends
largely on the success of the reintegration phase, which has kicked off
already with the allocation of trainees to centres across Nigeria and
overseas.

“Learning Resources Limited, a
Nigerian-based integrated education and vocational service provider,
partners the amnesty programme in facilitating the training of the
delegates in Ghana,” he said. “The initial number of 212 is a portion
of an estimated 1000 transformed ex-militants who have been short
listed to benefit from the similar training programme in Ghana. Since
the commencement of the Amnesty Reintegration phase in August 2010,
more than 7,000 transformed ex-militants have been allocated to both
local and offshore training centres, with more than 2,000 allocated for
education and vocational training offshore. In the coming weeks, more
delegates will travel to countries such as Malaysia, Romania, U.K,
U.S.A, Egypt, Poland, Netherlands, etc, to commence various types of
training.”

Happy with process

In an interview with journalists, Beggi
Fidelis, Camp Support Staff and an ex-militant, expressed hope that the
training will positively affect him and his colleagues. “I am happy to
be among those going for this training in Ghana, and we expect that we
will get the best from the institution that will help us to be able to
stand and make money on our own,” he said. Another former militant,
Egbine Robinson, assured Nigerians that they will be of good conduct
during the period of the training in Ghana. “We have gone through the
non-violence principles and as people that want to receive training to
better our lives, we are not going to misbehave in Ghana,” he said.

I had a good laugh
when I read the reports of ‘surprise’ that many youth corps members did
not know how to operate the laptops being used with the Direct Data
Capture machines for the voter’s registration exercise. I say that I
laughed, but I was laughing with despair, not with happiness.

For the past 10
years, at least, academics, students, parents, educators, and employers
have raised concerns, expressed alarm, and lamented the state of
education in our country.

In our secondary
schools, classes are over crowded, with about 100 pupils per teacher in
the worst cases, rendering whatever teaching that takes place almost
completely ineffective. Some classrooms are labeled laboratories but
have no Bunsen burners or other basic Science equipment.

I am glad to report
that in recent years, the situation has improved a lot. But not too
long ago, in many of our colleges of higher education, some graduates
of Computer Science were experts in programming but did not have access
to functioning computers in their faculties. They learnt the theory and
had to pick up the practical themselves after graduation.

I recently listened
to a re-intepretation of Bobby Benson’s famous song, ‘Taxi Driver’,
performed during the Ajumogobia Foundation Concert in December by Ibiai
Ajumogobia and Nimi Akinkugbe. The sheet music for the pianos and all
the other classical and African musical instruments was composed by a
professor of Music in Ife. The composition was a virtuoso piece of
music combining high-life, jazz, and classical genres in harmonious
accord.

That this kind of
overwhelming talent and skillful expertise could exist in our public
university system that has suffered such resource neglect with old and
faulty equipment and poorly stocked libraries is a marvel; and our
dogged graduates are a marvel too.

The youth corpers
should be congratulated for having learned within a week how to operate
the machines and get the job done in the face of infrastructure
challenges such as incorrect software, insufficient power from the
batteries, from the grid, or from standby generators; and inordinate
pressure managing large numbers of impatient and irate voters who queue
up mostly in outdoor locations to register. The fault does not lie with
them.

Let me go back to
my laughter. I laughed because it really seems as though our fellow
citizens in positions of power, influence, or in the civil service do
not have a realistic idea of what the prevailing conditions of life are
for the people they serve. If that is the case, then it makes sense
that they would not have planned adequately for the logistics of the
exercise.

In opting to close
all schools down so that public schools could be used as centres for
the registration exercise, perhaps the Ministry of Education is unaware
that the bulk of educational institutions are private not public.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that in Lagos the ratio is approximately 80% private to 20% public.

In closing down all
schools, they have interrupted the education of 80% of our school-age
children in the so-called ‘interest’ of the 20% in public schools who
would be affected.

To respond to some
of the accusations of ‘elitism’ that I have been reading in the press
about the drive to keep the private schools open. 80% means that
students from every and all economic groups are educated in private
schools. The children of street sweepers, cleaners, drivers,
messengers, and domestic staff also attend private schools.

They also want
their children to be taught in classrooms without holes in the roof,
and to be seated on chairs and not on the floor. Since they have to pay
‘unofficial fees’ for their children’s education in our ‘free’ public
schools, they choose to pay official fees in private schools and have
some measure of comfort, care, and a guarantee that teachers will turn
up to teach provided for their children. Get the facts right! Open your
eyes and look around, ask questions.

I am not saying that all public schools are like that, but too many to be comfortable are.

Yes, we have
graduates who enter the National Youth Service Corps. Yes, almost all
of them have a facebook page and one of the popular internet email
accounts. No, most of them do not have a computer at home, have never
plugged in a computer, let alone turned it on, or used multimedia
software other than to upload their electronic passport photographs.
They use computer in internet cafes where they are already switched on
and all you have to do is click on the appropriate icon on the desktop
screen.

Yet, these are a
bunch of very smart, very ambitious young people who are hungry to
learn and to be exposed to the many experiences that a working life can
offer them.

I salute them and
their parents for their mere participation in this major exercise in
democracy that brings them in close contact with their fellow citizens
everywhere in Nigeria, that exposes them to the wide range of
professions, cultures and backgrounds in the neighbourhoods they serve.

I salute their
courage in the face of general insecurity in our country, and the added
risk of political thuggery. I envy them the experience of real
down-home Nigerian care and hospitality.

The neighbourhood
old folks who express concern for their welfare and protect them from
the ‘area boys and girls’. The mamas and babas who bring them cool
drinks, snacks and food unasked for, and unrewarded. The good souls who
keep them company and share the local gossip with them, who keep their
belongings safe while they are otherwise occupied. The homes,
businesses, and umbrellas that are offered to them when it rains or the
sun gets too hot. The laughter, the jokes, the camaraderie, the
arguments, the posing, the fronting – such a diverse and enriching
experience that they will never forget as long as they live.

May they live long, and may this registration exercise, these
elections, and the next administration be better off due to their
participation. Let’s give them all the support and encouragement that
we can.