The more I try to restrain myself from saying or writing anything about the Government of Abia State, the more the Okezie Victor Ikpeazu-led administration makes it difficult for me to keep to that resolve.
How does one explain the fact that under a supposed “scholar,” education has fallen to an all time low in the state? At the last count, the following educational institutions are in comatose due to one reason or the other.
1. All primary and secondary schools in the state are shutdown following an indefinite strike action embarked upon by the Nigerian Union of Teachers, NUT, Abia State chapter, as a result of non-payment of salaries running into years now. The strike action denied Abia students in public schools the opportunity to write their Basic School Certificate Examination (junior WAEC).
2. A few months ago, the medical school of the Abia State University – Abia State University Teaching Hospital (ABSUTH) – was also shutdown owing to the withdrawal of accreditation by the regulatory agency, also occasioned by non-payment of salaries.
3. The one time prestigious Abia State University, Uturu, has been turned into an extension of the Government House, where certificates and degrees are withdrawn and awarded at the directives of some powerful forces within the power circle. Even as I write this now, there’s no guarantee that my degree certificate will not be withdrawn by the end of today. Lecturers of ABSU are also owed several months of salaries.
4. Just yesterday, the news broke that the Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, has lost its accreditation as an institution. The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) withdrew the accreditation, citing non-payment of workers’ salaries for three years and counting..
5. I don’t want to talk about the ABSU schools of nursing and midwifery that have also lost their licenses to train nurses and midwives for a long time now. Needless mentioning the poor conditions of the Abia State College of Education, Technical, Arochukwu, and the Abia State College of Health Sciences, Aba.
Yet, government vuvuzelas and sycophants keep shouting “Scholar in governance.” Whatever that means, remains a mystery.
I am saddened by these ugly and embarrassing developments.
Every right thinking and patriotic Abian and Nigerian should be worried concerned as well.
