₦airaland Forum

THE PRESIDENT MUST HEAR THIS
The President of Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammad Buhari must hear about the tragic situation in the University of Nigeria Nsukka that, if not reversed, would prevent thousands of vulnerable prospective first year students of the institution from registering for the admission they got. The administration of Vice Chancellor, Professor Benjamin Ozumba increased the number of the hurdle of fees the first year students have to pay before they take up their hard-earned placements.
In addition to acceptance fee of N25,000, tuition fees ranging from N55,000 to N60,000 depending on the course, accommodation fee of N9, 500 for males and N11, 500 for females, Ozumba introduced what he terms ‘’laptop fee’’. The first year students must cough out an extra N70,000 for some UNN-issued laptop or be deemed unqualified to register.
There is no justification for making the payment of laptop fee a condition for registration of first year students. It is simply exploitation and a means of denying the less privileged Nigerians access to education. It is rigging education against the poor.
In this hard economic season, one in which the President has declared the country broke several times, raising money to pay ‘’acceptance fee’’, tuition fees, and accommodation fee of those stipulated sums is tough. These are times when federal and state governments can’t pay the civil servants who are supposed to underwrite their children’s education. To choose this time to lay an extra burden on broke people is not mere wickedness. It is murder!

There is a tragic situation in the University of Nigeria Nsukka that, if not reversed, would shunt thousands of prospective first year students of the institution away from resumption.
The administration of Vice Chancellor Professor Benjamin Ozumba increased the number of the hurdle of fees the kids have to surmount before they take up their hard-earned placements.
In addition to acceptance fee (25,000 naira), tuition fees (ranging from 55,000 to 60,000 naira depending on the course), accommodation fee (9, 500 naira for males and 11, 500 naira for females), Ozumba introduced what he terms ‘’laptop fee’’. The intake must fork out an extra 70,000 naira for some UNN-issued laptop or be deemed unqualified to register.
There is no justification for making the payment of laptop fee a condition for registration of freshers. It is simply a pretext for blatant exploitation. It is the glorification of lucre over sanity. It is the mouth of commercialism opened wide against reason and knowledge. It is rigging education against the poor.
In this hard economic season, one in which the President has declared the country broke several times, raising money to pay ‘’acceptance fee’’, tuition fees, and accommodation fee of those stipulated sums is tough. These are times when federal and state governments can’t pay the civil servants who are supposed to underwrite their children’s education. To choose this time to lay an extra burden on broke people is not mere wickedness. It is murder!
To begin with, Ozumba’s monopoly laptop shop doesn’t chime in with the free market system Nigeria runs. No respectable university in a capitalist economy presumes to force products on students at a price decided by the university administration. No university foists its own preferred brand of conusmer goods on its students. And if there must be such aberration of a university that detours from teaching and research to trading, it should not be the University of Nigeria.
This instance of abuse of the VC’s authority negates the very motto of UNN. The imposition of laptop fee violates the university’s foundational respect for human freedom. It is a departure from the institution’s pursuit of the advancement of the pride of the human being.
The laptop imposition is unwarranted. If the university administration had set ownership of a laptop as one of the preconditions for student registration, the prospective students should have been asked to buy themselves laptops or be ready to provide evidence of possession of a personal computer at the point of registration.
Some of the intakes already have their own laptops. Some bought theirs ahead of resumption. In this forced purchase arrangement, they must buy a laptop they don’t need because the VC had decreed that every person that steps into his territory must kiss his ware.
This “You Must Buy My Laptop’’ diktat is meant to channel gains to the private pockets of the masterminds of this policy. The scheme apparently arose from the tryst of a person with links to a laptop dealership and someone that boasts a student population that could be turned into a compulsory market.
It’s a conspiracy to swindle!
If the administration was only interested in ensuring that the new intakes have the technology they need to start their adventure on campus, the university would not need to push the kids to buy from its stock. They would not be told they must buy their laptops from Ozumba’s hands, at Ozumba’s price.
This scheme divests those who don’t own a laptop of the right to buy laptops with specifications that fit their choice and interest. They must pay for a uniform laptop that the all-wise Ozumba has decided would satisfy the spectrum of their individual tastes.
This laptop thing is a niche for racketeering. The policy originated from mercantile greed. Some predators had thought up this scheme, calculated the likely profits, and then proceeded to invent an excuse to make the eggs of their financial fantasy hatch elephants!
The truth is that the market is full of high quality laptops of affordable price. The students can buy themselves laptops; everyone according to their means. The fact that they met UNN’s admission requirements is a proof that they are capable of making intelligent decisions.
In Nigeria, public servants tend to demonstrate ingenuity in creating opportunity for self-enrichment. They study their work environment and parlay the powers at their disposal to create a mischievous initiative that will fatten their savings.
And the word that encapsulates this misuse of power is CORRUPTION!
Ozumba manipulated the levers of his office in a way that compromises public interest and delivers profit to individual pockets. He deployed his authority to drain his students and favor the bottom line of some laptop suppliers.
He must be made to drop this business deal for the sake of something that is more important than countable naira bills: the future of young people.
The students Ozumba is scaring away from the gates of UNN have already walked a long road. They studied hard to meet the academic requirements for admission. They notched up the requisite number of O-level credits. They sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination and scored above the cut-off point. They took another qualification test and earned the marks that fetched them their current placements.
Why should the Vice Chancellor who ought to embrace these kids push them away? Why is he suggesting they need to perform money ritual to cap their admission eligibility?
It is a shame that, in Nigeria, public officials who have a responsibility for making things work often work hard making sure things don’t work. David Mark, then Minister of Communication who was supposed to access to telecommunication service, was proud to affirm that the poor should not aspire to owning a telephone. Ozumba, the Vice Chancellor who is obligated to attract the best brains in the university catchment area and beyond, is scaring bright but poor brains them away from the university.
Ozumba seems to have revised the scriptural quotation that illustrates the rich’s difficult path to heaven into a discriminatory disqualifier for the poor who intends to come to ‘his’ university. He appears to have made it easier for a camel to pass through the needle’s eye than for a poor kid to enter the gates of the University of Nigeria!
Many Nigerian families recognize the importance of education. They know that education is a game changer. They know education breaks the cycle of inherited poverty. They know the educated acquires an escape velocity that frees him from the imprisonment of an impoverished family background. This explains why many poor Nigerians are sworn to seeing their children through to the university.
Struggling widows in Nigeria sell their prized wears to pay their children’s school fees. Some men sell their plots of land. They sweat in their farms and building sites. They delay personal gratifications. They borrow when there is little or nothing else to sell. They sow in hope, praying that their sacrifice would exorcise illiteracy and penury from their bloodline.
An Ozumba seated in a cozy Vice Chancellor’s office is a stranger to these realities. The comfort he lives in would make him less inclined to consider the impact of his decision on the base that feeds him majority of his intake. But Nigeria cannot allow a big man’s insensitivity to consume the future of education-hungry Nigerians.
A couple of weeks ago, South African students marched in the streets. They rallied in their thousands. They protested against a proposed 11.5% hike in fees due to go into effect next year. They battled for a future that was about to slip away from their hands. And they won. They secured an increment-free 2016 academic session.
In University of Nigeria, there is a mockery of Students’ Union Government that can neither mobilize a viable protest against this murderous deal nor articulate a compelling case against it.
Successive administrations in the recent past have cumulatively neutered UNN students’ representative body. They randomly suspended student union activities and destroyed the pattern of transmission of the Den’s union culture through mentorship. When they deigned to approve the restoration of the students’ union, they excluded vibrant and popular students from vying for leadership positions and installed pliant figureheads.
As a former UNN students’ union leader, I feel duty-bound by my retrospective role to urge the University of Nigeria Alumni Association to prevail on UNN VC to scrap this laptop imposition. I call on the regulator of the Nigerian university system, the National University Commission, to direct Ozumba to desist from bartering students for pecuniary gain.
Those who weaved this scam must not be permitted to enjoy their spoil. The kids who have paid should be refunded. Those who have yet to pay should be allowed to complete the university’s registration formalities.
The kids who have earned their placements should not be slaughtered on the altar of Mammon. Smart Nigerians should not be turned away from their dream university because of a life-and-death laptop supply contract!

I hail you, the great Jagaban. The man that ruled Lagos state for eight years despite all Obasanjo's attempt to take the state from him, and since then has maintained the hold of the state since then. He later extended his empire to the whole south west.

Amaechi has one of the most juicy ministry, transportation. Land, Air, Marine and Rail transportations are all under him. If want to know what is in marine transportation, ask Hon Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu state governor). Also, if you want to know what is in Aviation, ask Princess Odua and FFK. I was laughing when I read some uninformed/misinformed people commenting that its all about motor park agboro stuff.

Kayode gets Solid minierals; Fasola gets Power housing works

Rotimi Amaechi, immediate past governor of Rivers state is the minister of Transportation.


https://mobile.twitter.com/TVCNews_Africa/status/664404680248815616?p=v

The 36 ministers cleared by the senate has been sworn in by the President Mohammed Buhari at the council chamber Aso Villa Abuja. The senate president and speaker of House of Representatives are in attendance. The president is currently reading his speech.

Behold the men that define the fate of Nigeria, Africa and the World.

DAME VIRGY ETIABA from Nnewi in Anambra state is the first female/woman governor in Nigeria. Alhassan will be the second(2nd) female/woman governor in Nigeria if she ever wins the appeal because PDP must appeal the judgement.

Enugu state is made up of three senatorial zones; Enugu North, Enugu East and Enugu West. Since the return to democracy in 1999 which is 16 years now, the state has been democratic in sharing elective political positions. In 1999, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani from Enugu East senatorial zone became the executive governor of the state, while Chief Okechukwu Itanyi from Enugu North senatorial zone became the deputy governor and the speakership goes to Enugu West in the person of Abel Chukwu. By 2007 Mr Sullivan Chime from Enugu West Senatorial Zone became the governor and Mr Sunday Onyebuchi from Enugu East Senatorial Zone became the deputy governor while Barr. Sunday Onyebuchi from Enugu North Senatorial zone became the speaker. This year, 2015, Hon Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi from Enugu North senatorial zone became the executive governor while Mrs Cecelia Ezilo from Enugu West senatorial zone became his deputy and the speakership goes to Enugu East senatorial zone. This rotation among the triangular equilibrium has brought political harmony in the land of Enugu.
But in the case of ministerial appointments from the state since 1999 the case is not the same. The ministerial slots of the state has been rotated between Enugu East and Enugu West senatorial zones while Enugu North senatorial zone which has the highest population figure according to 2006 census figure watches. This is how it has been going since 1999:
From 1999-2003 Chief Dubem Onyia from Enugu West Senatorial zone served as a Minister of state External Affairs
From 2003-2007 Chief Frank Nweke Jnr. From Enugu East senatorial zone served as a Minister of Inter governmental Affairs, Information and Communication
From 2007-2011 Mrs Fidelia Njeze from both Enugu West and East senatorial zones served as a Minister of State Agriculture and Defense
From 2011-2015 Prof. Bath Nnaji from Enugu East senatorial zone and Prof. Chinedu Nebo from Enugu West senatorial zone served as Ministers of Power.
Now, in 2015 Mr. Geoffrey Jideofor Onyeama from Enugu West Senatorial zone has been nominated to serve as a minister in the present government.
It is worthy of note that Enugu North senatorial zone has the highest population figure in the state as illustrated below:
ENUGU NORTH (1,228,586 populations) is made up of 6 local governments thus:
Igbo Etiti 209,248
Igboeze North 259,431
Igboeze South 147,328
Nsukka 309,633
Udenu 178,466
Uzo Uwani 124,480
ENUGU EAST (1,166,548 populations) is made up 6 local governments thus:
Enugu East 279,089
Enugu North 244,852
Enugu South 198,723
Isi Uzo 148,415
Nkanu East 148,774
Nkanu West 146,695
ENUGU WEST (1,054,711 populations) is made up of 5 local governments thus:
Aninri 133,723
Awgu 390,681
Ezeagu 169,718
Oji River 126,587
Udi 234,002

Up until Tuesday, October 13, 2015, not too many people knew or had even heard of Mr. Geoffrey Jideofor Onyeama. He is an indigene of Eke in Udi Local Government Area of Enugu state
His name which was included in the second ministerial nominees list read out on the floor of the Senate by Senate President Bukola Saraki among others did not immediately ring a bell.
In fact, many people from Enugu State, his home state were already agitating that the state was excluded in the ministerial list showing that he is not very well known in the state much more Nigeria.
Even the Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu while contributing to a motion on the exclusion of FCT in the ministerial list also said that he was doubtful if Enugu State, his home state was represented in the list.
His name made the coveted list because he is a friend to President Muhammadu Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari who made a strong recommendation for him.
It was gathered that both attended Cambridge University in the 1980s and have been close friends ever since then. Before the final list was read out on the floor of the Senate yesterday, most observers predicted that Osita Okechukwu, an All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwart in Enugu State, and an indigene of Eke like Onyeama, would be the nominee from the state.
While some dropped the name of Prof Bat Nnaji, the former Minister of Power as
a possible nominee. Onyeama is the fourth son of Charles Dadi Onyeama, who was Nigeria’s first ever judge at the International Court of Justice at the Hague, and younger brother of author Dilibe.
The nominee also read law at Cambridge after a degree in Political Science from Columbia University and has worked with the World Intellectual Property Organisation since the 1980s.

Obasanjo is a great master of Nigeria politics. He is the grand master of Nigeria political mafians. I am always happy when I see him around PMB.

Since we returned to democracy in 1999 these are the names of ministers from Enugu state:
1. Chief Dubem Onyia
2. Mr. Frank Nweke Jr.
3. Pharm. Mrs. Fidelia Njeze
4. Engr. Bart Nnaji
5. Prof Chinedu Nebo

Among these ministers none is from Enugu North senatorial zone (Nsukka zone).

Does it mean there is no qualified person from Nsukka

Amaechi is divinely favoured, there is no reason to fight him. If you fight him, you may loose your post. GEJ and wife did it and where are they now? Wike is doing it and you will know where he goes soon.

Yes it is Nebo's legacy in the power sector that we are enjoying now. Nebo in GEJ administration made a lot of contributions in the power sector but corruption could not allow the result to manifest or for us to feel the impact. Buhari has a share in the relatively steady power we are enjoying because if he had not removed corruption which was clog on the wheel of the sector, the gains will not manifest. Nebo also left legacy of high school fee, introduction of acceptance fee, and others in UNN

Look at Wike pointing accusing finger of corruption at Amaechi.

This will be the first test of PMB political strength. If any of his nominee is dropped, he has to go to OBJ for political torturing.

If they protesting for this what should the UNN students have done. The fact is that most of these people that are making education expensive are trained by their communities or on scholarship. They use the university as a money making venture where they make money to build factories abroad and also for political patronage.

Chief Dave Umahi is an intelligent and smart governor. Those states like Ekiti where their governors are fighting the federal government are simply trading the fortunes of their citizens for personal pride and arrogant. It happened to river state during the Amechi era when he started fighting the president. Rivers survived because of their high internal generated revenue profile, but some states like Ebonyi may not find it funny.

I think government is for all, both the poor and rich. Why is it that most of these housing estates are not targeted towards the poor in the society? The cost of these houses are so exorbitant that they are purchased by mostly politicians and drug/oil barons, while the common and average man in the society keep living in a suburb areas. They say housing for all (MDGs).

That is why he is a great leader. I wonder the kind leaders of tomorrow today's youths are going to be as the reading culture has disappear from among us. The real leaders build personal library first from where they derive inspiration to build political and business empire.

ALL these things are the work of politicians