Ngor/Okpala and Understaffed Public Primary School Teachers

By Nwaorgu Faustinus

The abysmal inadequacy of public primary school teachers in Ngor okpala local government area should be a source of concern to all who holds the education of their wards close to the heart. A situation whereby a single teacher is charged with the responsibility of handling three classes from Monday to Friday could be best described as tedious, energy sapping and uninspiring.

Truly, the above situation is what most public primary school teachers are going through in Ngor Okpala, particularly in Umuodagu Ntu primary school. This scenario according to sources who wouldn’t want their names mentioned in print most times make it difficult for some teachers to prepare adequate lesion notes that will take care of the multi-classes they have to teach in a day.

As a result of this, some teachers now bring the various classes together to teacher. But the question on the lips of many is: When will this development come to an end? What is the Imo State government doing to bring this ugly trend to its logical end in order to save the educational future of pupils in the public primary school?

I recall quite vividly at the time I attended primary school, each class; say primary one, has a teacher that teaches the class the various subjects that is assigned to him or her on that day. With what is currently happening in some public primary schools in the council area, the one teacher one class that was the hallmark of teaching in early 80’s is now being greatly eroded.

The governor Rochas Okorocha government needs to expedite urgent action on this. This he can start doing by carrying out massive recruitment of qualified teachers through the appropriate body that sees to the recruitment of teachers that will fill in these obvious vacancies of shortage of teachers in public primary schools. If this is done, the great burden and pain teachers go through in preparing their lesion notes, delivering their lesion in the classroom and marking of take-home-work, test and examination answer scripts will be greatly reduced.

Furthermore, in the event of recruitment and deployment of teachers to public primary schools not only in Ngor/Okpala or Umuodagu Ntu but also in all the local government areas that makes up Imo State, concerted effort should be made or geared towards ensuring that those posted in rural areas are monitored to forestall them from effecting their posting back to the capital city (Owerri metropolis).
It is only when this is done will the underhand dealing that characterize the effecting of one’s posting from rural public primary schools back to urban schools will be nipped in the bud.

Nwaorgu Faustinus wrote in via ngorokpalaresearcher@gmail.com

Peterside Condemns Police torture of Chidi Lloyd

Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) and representative, Andoni/Opobo-Nkoro Federal constituency, Hon. Dakuku Peterside, has condemned the torture by police in Rivers State of Hon. Chidi Lloyd who is currently being detained over the fracas that broke out in the Rivers State House of Assembly on July 9.

According to Peterside, more evidence of systematic torture on the leader of Rivers State House of Assembly has emerged. Lloyd who reported to Police Headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday 23 July following an earlier invitation by the police has been consistently abused by hitting, battering, pushing, kicking, handcuffing and uttering of obscenities thereby demeaning him all in a bid to coerce and compel him to obtain an involuntary extra-judicial confessional statement.

This torture, sadly is taking place at the Rivers State Police Command where he was transferred to under the strict and personal supervision of the state police commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu. For the records, let us state that section 34(1)(a) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended prohibits these crude and barbaric conduct of Commissioner of Police of Rivers State as every citizen of this country is entitled to respect for his human dignity and Mbu does not have unbridled power to deprive any citizen of this constitutionally guaranteed right, especially in a democracy.

For Peterside therefore, “this is not only condemnable but regrettable. Rivers State Police Command under Mbu seems not to be bothered by the fact that any evidence that is obtained by force, torture, intimidation or by any form of abuse is not admissible in the court of law, and this is unfortunate”.

The lawmaker wondered why this is happening at this time despite the intervention of the National Assembly. “This inhuman conduct by Rivers State Police command is not only a gross abuse of the fundamental human rights of the accused but further confirms our fears that Mbu is out to eliminate Lloyd who has been subjected to horrific ordeal since his return to Rivers State and other pro-ameachi Lawmakers.”

This ugly development in our country today is antithetical to the Geneva Convention which expressly demands that countries take effective measures to prevent torture within its borders. Other international laws also confirm that torture and other mistreatment of persons in custody are also prohibited in all circumstances under international human rights law.

This, no doubt, is diminishing and a major setback to our nascent democracy.”

However, Peterside commended the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar for the civility and professionalism he exhibited during Lloyd’s short stay at the Police Headquarters in Abuja.

He therefore called on “the police high command to do the needful and stop subjecting the accused to these inhumanities until full investigation into the crisis is concluded. He has neither been convicted of any offence nor condemned to perpetual incarceration in police custody by any court of law.”

What Wike Forgot About Amaechi

By Odimegwu Onwumere

Barrister Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike is the Minister of State for Education. He seems to have circuitously ditched this appointment. His combatant attitude in the smeared politics of Rivers State, buttresses this fact. His incessant appearance in the media, but in warring features, no longer portrays him as a diplomat, but as a dirty politician who casts the die and goes for the kill. Diplomats are known to diplomacy in any of their dealings, but Wike is farfetched from this reality. He rather prefers to open his mouth and talk riotously and beat his chest and boasts of playing politics. 

 

Reading the Saturday July 6, 2013, edition of The Sun, where Barr. Wike opened his mouth and talked like the ‘small boy’ that he repeatedly said that Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State was addressing him as, reminds one that not all grown people are adults. It could be a thing like this that moved Amaechi to be calling him the alleged ‘small boy’. It is not a venomous attack when a man who is well respected opens his mouth and talks like an inexperienced kid. Anyway, it is only in politics that stupidity is not regarded as a shortcoming. If not, the pointless political battle which Wike has brought upon Rivers State ought not to have occurred.

As a Minister of State for Education, is it part of delivering the dividends of democracy for Wike to fight his state governor? What is this scenario creating in the international community? Would the international community see Nigeria as a country where there are gentlemen representatives or gangsters’? It is unbecoming of a man of that status to make majority of his matters in the on-going political imbroglio in the state a press matter; although, as a lawyer, he knows better. Just chatting.

Persons of class do not open their fangs of debris in interview; they tell the world through issuance of press releases and wait to give a valedictory lecture about all the ‘truths’ and ‘lies’ against them while in a public office. Professor Niyi (Osundare) gave one of such world-acclaimed valedictory lectures about the does and don’t, bickering and brickbats, image and margin he experienced in the University of Ibadan when he was leaving the school for the New Orleans in the United States. Authorities do not rise against authorities when work is in progress. It is not gentlemanly.

Wike never gainsaid that it was not politics that brought Amaechi and him together. That was in 1998 or 1999, under former Governor Peter Odili, who ruled Rivers State. But between 1999 and 2002, Wike said that he was the chairman of Obio/Akpor LGA. The Minister didn’t just become the LGA’s chair. He became chairman by the help of Amaechi when the administration of that time wanted to shortchange him for someone else for the plumb job at the Obio/Akpor LGA. Amaechi was Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly then. Are the records not there?

It is unflattering of Wike to say that people easily forget ‘yesterday’ and that people also are good in paying ‘bad’ for ‘good’ because of selfishness. And, you wonder if he was the one who forgot how Amaechi helped him to become Chairman of Obio/Akpor or someone somewhere. Yes, people forget easily. It is, however, the duty of Wike to check his conscience very well about his relationship with Amaechi before presenting the world with these irrational political abracadabras in his home state. It could be on this premise that whoever he was saying that branded him a betrayer was bent on using that word. It is either Wike faces his Ministerial job or resign and become an activist, in lieu of saying that he was fighting Amaechi because he is always on the side of ‘justice’ and rule of law in the leadership tussle of PDP in the state.

How did Amaechi want to own the party? Even in the political crises that have been tormenting the state, has Wike not ascribed Amaechi as the leader of the party in the state? Did Wike not say that Amaechi represents change you can see? And this is the popular opinion of people in the state.

Okay. Let’s assume that Wike has now become the leader. Is a leader expected to be a servant or a warrior? If people begin to brand Wike in these crises, no one is sure how many names he would get out of the ‘betrayer’ that he said someone was addressing him as. He might have fought Amaechi’s battle for the governorship position in the state in 2007, but did that not translate to paying back to Amaechi what he did for Wike for the later’s emergence as the Obio/Akpor LGA chairman which was a springboard for whatever fame Wike thinks he has today. When we say that we are standing on the side of the ‘truth’, let’s not forget to dine, drink and tell the truth.

In earnest, there was no presentation of details in that interview. What Wike did was to tell a fraction of the story to attract people’s sympathy. Why? It was not wrong that Wike stood on truth, according to him, when Amaechi actually had the mandate. But this is not only the fact that Wike have to tell the world about his once harmonious relationship with Amaechi. The governor also helped him to become the Obio/Akpor LGA chairman.

One problem with some persons is that they like saying things to attract self-pity. If not, what was the meaning in the statement by Wike about a particular incident he said that took place in London where security operatives tracked and wanted to pick up two of his persons that worked with him for Amaechi. He also said that during that period he stood by Amaechi and never gave away his secrets. So, is this the time to give away secrets? Hooey!

Let us not delve into many self-indulgent comments by Wike, but the truth is that he wants the Rivers State which he said that he laboured for to retrogress to the era when hoodlums took over the state and were calling the shots in an excuse of militancy.

Wike had claimed in the interview that there were five assassination attempts on his life in the cause of supporting Amaechi for governorship in 2007 and that he lost his driver in one of those attempts. The question now is who were those behind the assassination attempts on Wike? Could it be those who were fighting on the side of Omehia? Or, could it be their master, Odili? Or, could it be that Wike plotted his assassination? Or, better still, could it be that Wike fabricated the story? Otherwise, how can Wike explain his new found romance with Odili and Omehia? Has Wike gone back to his vomit?

Does Wike also want Amaechi to be attacked in the cause of being a governor? So, old friends are no longer gold? Amazing. Saying that Amaechi wanted to be Tinubu in Rivers State, could it be why Wike has been fighting hard to wrestle that position since he said that as “a minister, the governor cannot accord me little courtesy because he is chairman of governors’ forum, he is everything”. Let us not believe that envy is at play.

Wike has been a proponent of Ikwerre North and Ikwerre South political divide. He has been pushing that Gov. Amaechi is from Ikwerre North and it will be the turn of his Ikwerre South after Gov. Amaechi’s tenure of office. Is it not why Wike is fighting Amaechi so that he will take over, but using the presidency as a cover? Is Wike not thinking that all the residents of Rivers State are optimally stupid and that he can fool everybody? We can see that Wike is not fighting for the public, but for himself. So, Wike can be seen as a fake apostle of ‘justice’ and ‘truth’.

Governor Amaechi might not be hundred percent good. But he was elected and, the minister was appointed. So, you can see where the problem lies: Lack of loyalty. Any appointee who challenges the authorities of his or her employer would be seen as a ‘small boy or girl’. You cannot say because you helped the owner of a company to erect the structure, therefore you are equal with the owner when the company becomes functional. Yea, friendship cannot be forgotten, but in an instituted organization where there is hierarchy, there is also protocol.

Amaechi might not be one hundred percent transparent in the business of governance, but we can see the type of transparency that is in Wike’s dictionary, which are Wars. Let us remind Wike that one does not need to play role for a leader to be appointed for a job. He was asking for the role played by persons that Amaechi appointed into his cabinet during 2007 elections. Can we now know and see who is actually selfish? No. In a transparent government, people are appointed into positions because of good recommendations they have garnered.

It was obvious that it’s not only Wike who fought for Amaechi, but he is the only one complaining deficiently today. Why? Was he telling us that he was the only one who was not fully compensated and others were really compensated? Can we now differentiate between greed and politics? Wike says that Amaechi sits as a lord of the manor and you wonder what who dethrones this Lord becomes. If Wike says that Amaechi wants to remain in Rivers State as the lord, then he is fighting to remove Amaechi so that he becomes the lord. Are Rivers people calculating?

People should not allow themselves to be manipulated by insatiability. Wike said that the faction of the executive of the party in the state came to receive Mr. President on Friday, June 28 at the Port Harcourt airport, while in his jaundiced thinking the governor was in Lagos with his APC friends for Fashola’s birthday. Must Wike blackmail Amaechi to the president anytime he wants to make a statement? What a cheap way of currying favour!

Contrary to the claim by Wike that he made Amaechi governor in 2007, persons like OCJ Okocha who just celebrated his 60th birthday have rebuffed that. Was there anytime that Amaechi nominated Wike as Minister to go and fight Mr. President? This was the question that Wike had asked, perhaps, to draw the president’s sympathy and hide under him to ‘deal’ with Amaechi. Let us now ask Wike: Did Gov. Amaechi nominate him as a federal minister to fight Rivers State and her government? What is Wike doing about the Rivers State oil wells that have been ceded with impunity to Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom States? As a federal minister, is Wike not supposed to talk about it? Is it not in this type of matter that a true apostle of justice and truth would speak up? 

We are seriously waiting for Wike to tell us the ‘truth’ about the government he once served as its Chief of Staff. His ‘truth’ should not be his tales that, “In Rivers State, when bottle breaks, they wouldn’t say it was bottle; they would say it was dynamite. When they see dynamite, they will say that they saw missile, and all must be aligned to Wike…” Is it not myopic when a man like Wike feels that he is the only person in Rivers State who knows the difference between the sound of a bottle, dynamite and missile? (Pride at work). It means that Wike is calling all of us liars. This is very unfortunate

Odimegwu Onwumere, a contributing Correspondent to Pilot Group, contributed this piece from Port Harcourt. Tel: +2348032552855. Email: apoet_25@yahoo.com

A Case for Strong Institutions

By Dakuku Peterside

All men of goodwill who look forward to a more progressive and equitable world appreciate the tremendous good Transparency International, TI does with its periodic verdict on nations and institutions across the globe. Sometimes I just wonder what our world would look like without watchdogs like Transparency International that continually reminds us about the way we are.

Recently, TI released the 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, GCB and rated political parties and the Nigeria Police as the most corrupt institutions in Nigeria. TI’s 2013 GCB is a product of interviews with a total number of 114,000 respondents across 107 countries between September 2012 and March 2013. The Berlin-based organisation said the primary aim of the 2013 GCB report was to explore respondents’ personal experiences of paying bribes for government services on one hand and on the other, to gauge perception of the integrity of major public institutions. There is also TI’s desire towards a better understanding of the willingness and disposition of citizens in countries under review to fight corruption.

From TI’s investigation, Nigeria is among the 88 countries where anti-corruption effort is ineffectual. This verdict is ominous. Yet it has not provided leads or talking points in our media. This important issue was merely reported and left alone. I am sure I did not see follow-ups. So why are we not paying the needed attention to this uncomplimentary report which has the capacity of stalling our investment drive and growth efforts?

If corruption is any abuse of a position of trust, either by an individual or an institution to gain an unfair advantage, then this report by TI is incontrovertible. I know corruption has many layers but this report reminds me again of some of our nation’s recent experiences that are not only irritating but reprehensible and regrettable.

Two institutions that characterise the existence and flourishing of democracy in any country are the party system and the institution of parliament. If one of the institutions, political parties carry the moral burden of being the den of corruption, then it is right to conclude that our democracy is sick. The other institution that shapes the growth of democracy is the police which help primarily in the maintenance of law and order in a purely democratic setting. This institution has been described in the TI report as the bastion of corruption with no ray of hope.

If these two institutions (political parties and the Police) that I consider most critical to the growth and survival of democracy and our country Nigeria has been described in such very uncomplimentary terms by TI GCB report, then where lies our hope?

Have our political parties derailed from its lofty objective of seeking to influence or entirely control government course of action, usually by putting forward candidates with aligned political views? Your guess is as good as mine. But I hate to think like a few of our compatriots who are of the opinion that Nigeria is in reverse gear. Of late, I just noticed that some us are becoming more romantic about our past republics, particularly the Second Republic politics. Despite the shortcomings of that era, it still remains one of the most colourful and vibrant republics, that is if the focus is on political parties.

Many still remember principal characters of that era like Augustus Meredith Adisa Akinloye, national chairman of National Party of Nigeria, NPN and how he and his colleagues at the commanding height of NPN leadership held sway on every party issue. At the time, Alhaji Shehu Shagari was a member of NPN and president of Nigeria, yet he submitted himself to party rules and regulations. All that changed with the emergence of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 and as they say, the rest is history.

Today, political parties are extensions of individuals’ or group’s personal estates. There is complete absence of principles, discipline, solidarity, group interest and camaraderie. A party member could be sanctioned at the flimsiest of excuses. While some have been suspended for their perceived popularity, others have suffered similar fates either for fraternizing with members of other parties or for holding a different view. At the bottom of the scramble we see in our parties is the desire to highjack party machinery for personal and selfish gains, and corruption is always the destination.

Yes, abuse of position of trust is corruption and this is prevalent in our parties. Nigeria’s political parties must therefore look inwards and seek ways of ensuring that there is a level playing ground for every member. And to avoid a repeat of such an unflattering report in future like this one from TI, our parties must return to their traditional roles of seeking to influence government through their members with aligned political views. They must also stop forthwith, all forms of witch-hunt and intimidation against vocal members and perceived enemies.

For the Nigeria Police, I am not under any illusions, it is a long walk. TI’s verdict therefore is something that is already known to Nigerian people.

The police force represents everything but the same purpose it is meant to serve. The problem of Nigeria Police is not all about the quality of persons that populate it or the culture but also of funding which is a creation of the Nigerian state. The state that does not fund its police and yet still expects optimal policing is a misnomer or a fallacy.

For instance, for 2013, the budget of the Nigeria Police is N311, 148, 387,311($1.6bn). This budget is meant to police a population of over 160 million with a force strength of 330,000 officers and men. This contrasts sharply with the budget of Austin, a county in the state of Texas with a population of 843,162 people. The Austin Police Department has a budget of $284.4m which is about N45, 504,000,000 with staff strength of 2,300.

Whereas it cost an average of $123,478 to keep a policeman in Austin, Texas, it cost $5,893 to train and maintain a Nigerian policeman within the same period. It cost 21 times the same amount used for an average Nigerian policeman to train and equip a policeman in Austin, Texas. The implication of this comparative poor funding can be seen in training, moral, conduct, equipment and skill of the average Nigerian policeman. Worse still, an ill-equipped policeman in Nigeria is expected to police about 500 persons whereas a policeman in Austin who is well equipped and has access to modern technology will be policing about 366 persons. Thus it will be sheer madness to expect similar level of performance between a local Austin police and his counterpart federal police in Nigeria.

Every day, one is confronted with a plethora of woes of officers and men of the force. I am aware that more often than not, the individual police officer sources his or her kits from boots to uniforms and other accessories. It is also common knowledge that their take-home pay cannot really take them home in the real sense of that word. In barracks and duty posts, issues of low morale, welfare, training, lack of modern equipment and more echo. I acknowledge the fact that some state governments have done well for the police yet it is not anywhere near the ideal or what our expectation is from the force.

Under these circumstances, corruption will naturally grow and fester. Officers and men of the Nigeria Police live among us and are part of us, with needs and aspirations like any of us. They say every society deserves its police, perhaps our police is a reflection of our reality. But we must halt this reality if we hope to build a virile nation where safety of lives and property, law and order is a national priority.

The political crisis in Rivers State today is direct fallout from failure of the police which is predicated on the many challenges facing the force. We are all witnesses to the flagrant disregard and disrespect of Governor Chibuike Amaechi, an elected public officer by Mbu Joseph Mbu, Rivers State Commissioner of Police. Mbu as confirmed by the Nigerian Senate and House of Representatives has consistently worked at cross-purposes with the governor, thereby compromising the security situation in the state. This is explainable. Mbu and the police he represents will prefer to serve those who have the power to appoint or remove them instead of the Nigerian people as contemplated by the Nigerian constitution. Nigerians also watched the theatre of absurd that played out in Rivers State when five out 32 members attempted to impeach the Speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly. Sadly, while the assembly was on fire, the commissioner of police, like Emperor Nero, fiddled. Nigerians also saw how four Northern governors who were on reconciliatory mission to Rivers State were pelted and held hostage by hired thugs at the Port Harcourt Airport under the watchful eyes of the police. And in Rivers State, most people are of the view that the police high command is exacerbating the crisis in the state because of certain interests that must be protected at all costs.

Corruption therefore is at the root of institutional decadence, dereliction of duty, deficit of professionalism and political meddlesomeness that has characterised the Nigeria Police of today as can be seen in the case of Commissioner Mbu in Rivers State, a classic case of a political policeman who does not know his bounds.

As we consolidate our democratic experience, let me say that we must strengthen our institutions. The police for instance, must be structured to serve the interest of Nigerians and not the selfish and narrow desires of a few. It is a sad commentary that our political parties and the police emerged as TI’s most corrupt institutions in Nigeria. This without doubt, calls for deep reflection. Nigerians therefore must work towards building strong institutions; this is the only way to guarantee justice, fairness, equity, peace and the rule of law.

Hon. Dakuku Peterside, member of House of Representatives and Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum Resources, Downstream represents Andoni-Opobo/Nkoro Federal Constituency