STAND DOWN SOLDIER

A few months back, Hausas and Yorubas clashed in Ife and it was very bloody. Although most ife people felt that the arrest which was predominantly Yoruba’s stink of bias so what did we do? The leaders stepped in to dialogue with Governement and the affected people. Eventually Sabo gradually revived in Ile Ife. Lessons and loss of lives and properties from Ife – Modakeke crisis was a gentle reminder that we don’t need any senseless war. I know this for a fact because my father was attacked twice but escaped during his numerous trips to dialogue and advocate for peace but unfortunately his house eventually got burnt to ashes.

Let me remind us that the 1966 Nigerian coup d'état of January 1966, led by Kaduna Nzeogwu and Emmanuel Ifeajuna killed 22 people some of whom were:

• Ahmadu Bello
• Tafewa Balewa
• Ladoke Akintola
• Brig-Gen. Samuel Ademulegun and his wife 
• Brig-Gen. Zakariya Maimalari
• Col. Kur Mohammed
• Col. Shodeinde 
• Lt.-Col. Abogo Largema
• Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh

One way or another that was the birth of all sort of Ethnic bias war that sorta led to the 1967 Biafra war. Of course many lives were lost but more on the Biafra side which was quite unfortunate.

Let me note here that Ojukwu was a Lt Col in the Nigerian Army and Governor of the Eastern Region of Nigeria. His father Sir Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu was the founding president of Nigeria Stock Exchange and had a lot of investments in virtually every thriving sector of the economy. So basically after the Aburi Accord fell apart, it was easy for a Military officer and Administrator of the entire Eastern Region with a lot of influence and wealth to take up the noble cause of Leading Biafra to war. 30 months later,  Biafra surrendered under the leadership of Major General Philip Effiong after Ojukwu left for Ivory Coast to seek political asylum.

Today, kanu wants to lead Biafra to war with which army? His argument is that Ibos have been marginalised for too long although I feel it’s a personal hatred and vendetta against Buhari. Apart from the fact that no Ibo has been President for very long time, they had contested for office at all level; they have since the 4th Republic had 5 Senate Presidents from a total of 7:

1. Evan Enwerem
2. Chuba Okadigbo
3. Anyim Pius Anyim
4. Aldolphus Wabara
5. Ken Nnamani

Considering the power that the Senate President wield in Nigeria that could have made a lot of sensible amendments to the constitution that would have benefited Nigeria and solved a lot of problems but instead they just enjoyed the largesse of the office just like their successors did and still doing without any visible or sensible change in law making. 

Let’s go back a bit to 1979 when Shagari was President, his VP was Alex Ekwueme from Anambra and Ebitu Ukiwe from Abia who fought on Biafra side was IBB’s VP for about a year before Augustus Aikhomu from Edo took over after his retirement.  Let me also note that, Clement Iyong Isong from Akwa Ibom was CBN Governor 1967 – 1975 through the Civil War and the Oil Boom and later became Ist Civilian Governor of Cross River State. 

Also, since the 1st Republic we have had a total of 15 Head of State (2 of which were Military and Civillian) out of which:

• South East 2 (Nnamdi Azikwe & Aguyi Ironsi)
• South South 1 (Goodluck Jonathan)
• South West 2 (Olusegun Obasanjo twice as military and civilian, Ernest Shonekan as interim Head of State)
• NC 1 (Yakubu Gowon)
• Core North 7 ( Murtala Mohammed, Muhammadu Buhari twice as Military and Civilian, Shebu Shagari, IBB, Sani Abacha, Abdulsam Abubakar, Musa Yar Adua)

So really if we think about this very well unless it was planned to be perfect I doubt if we could have had a perfect mix and balance from all regions. So when we talk of marginalisation who really do we to blame but ourselves and leaders. 

I do not support the senseless killing of innocent civilians by the army or BSS but Kanu has created an army he knows amount to nothing and the Nigerian Govt has played into his hands but then again if someone claims to have an army in a sovereign state and his army rise to defend him do you now blame the other side with a more sophisticated army who unleash terror when they clash? 

What is the way forward? Obviously a deluded man like Kanu should not be the one to lead the SE agitation. All the regions need solid leadership and dialogue to work out the modalities of restructuring and if the current Government resist this change, then we should sit down and plan a silent revolution that will start with putting sensible people in the National Assembly and gradually make laws that are sensible, hold the executive arm accountable and forge a better future for Nigeria either with the current structure or as a True Federation with maybe 3 or 6 Regions. 

PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES AND FUNDING CHALLENGE

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Our public universities need to think out of the box to find creative solutions to their funding crisis
The nation woke up recently to the decision by 38 public universities to jack up their tuition fees. According to the Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Dr. Deji Omole, the hike was necessitated by poor funding from the owners, the federal and state governments. Whatever may be the merit of this decision, we are concerned that it may obstruct the peace of the universities, whose students have already notified the authorities of their intention to oppose the proposal because it would shut out many of them who might not be able to afford the increment.

There is no doubt that the nation’s public universities are facing hard financial times. This is a corollary of government’s meagre attention to education, a fact attested to by its poor annual budgetary allocation to the sector. The United Nations E
ducational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommends that developing nations allocate 26 per cent of their annual budgets to education to enable them close the yawning gap in the sector’s development and to lay a solid foundation for their future growth, which would rely largely on the quality of their human resources.
Government, at all levels in our country, has performed abysmally on this front. In this year’s budget, for instance, the share for education in the federal government N7.3 trillion appropriation is a mere N448.01 billion, a miserly six per cent. But nothing demonstrates the perennial disdain for the sector than the allocation of a miserable N50 billion to capital development while a whopping N398.01 billion is allotted to recurrent expenditure. But reports on education from the 36 states of the federation are no better. The figures for 2016, for instance, showed that 33 of the 36 states allocated N653.53 billion, representing 10.7 per cent of their combined total budget estimates of N6.1 trillion to the sector.
These poor allocations fly in the face of government’s own realization of the dire situation in the Nigerian universities. An enquiry commissioned by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration in 2012 on the needs of these universities led the federal government to earmark N1.3 trillion for special intervention in the Nigerian public universities over the next six years. Only N200billion has been released to date.
With low budgetary allocation to education, it is little wonder why tertiary institutions, particularly universities are broke with the attendant degeneration of their infrastructural facilities as well as lowering of standards of teaching and learning. The situation has led to perennial shut down and instability in the public institutions. Their global ranking has sunk so low that none of them is ranked among the top 800 in the world or among the top 10 in Africa.
Meanwhile, in spite of government’s stated commitment to education, widespread agitations for increased budgetary allocation to the sector has not persuaded it to take more substantive steps in that direction, notwithstanding its complimentary funding of tertiary education through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).
While we support the clamor for increased funding, we nonetheless think that given the dwindling resources of government, the tertiary institutions need to think out of the box and find more creative solutions to the problem. Elsewhere, universities have explored several ways of raising money to fund their operations. In this regard, ours need not reinvent the wheel. The common avenues include donations, endowments, professional chairs, gifts, grants and consultancy services. We note that many of our universities have embarked on these but their performance needs to be stepped up.
The total earning of Nigeria’s 89 universities was N340.6 billion in 2016. Clearly much more work has to be done to shore up internally generated revenue in order to wean the universities of their virtual total dependence on government funding. More importantly, our universities’ administrators also need to manage their resources prudently and transparently as part of the challenge in several cases has been misappropriation of funds kept in their care.
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Elsewhere, universities have explored several ways of raising money to fund their operations. In this regard, ours need not reinvent the wheel. The common avenues include donations, endowments, professional chairs, gifts, grants and consultancy services. We note that many of our universities have embarked on these but their performance needs to be stepped up