1000 Kids Learn Under Trees In Ogoni Community
Wednesday, 14 January 2009, 11:23 am
Press Release: Akanimo Sampson

Akanimo Sampson

Bureau Chief, Port Harcourt

1000 Kids Learn Under Trees In Ogoni Community

OVER 1,000 primary school pupils at Kerebangha, an Ogoni community in Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State, are still learning under trees 21 months after the collapse of their school.

The Kerebangha Community Primary School collapsed on April 1, 2007 following a devastating wind storm that wrecked havoc in the largely farming community.

There are growing fears at the moment that the children might be forced to proceed on a long break when the rains set in if help fails to come from either official or public-spirited quarters. Already, Oyigbo Local Government Area, Ogoni neighbours, experienced the first rain of the year on Monday, January 12.
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However, efforts by the community people to rehabilitate the collapsed primary school are not yielding any good result due to the rampaging mass poverty in the area.

Community ruler, Chief Israel Pie-Uwe, told our correspondent yesterday in the area that they have also not been able to meet with the relevant authorities in Port Harcourt, the state capital, since June 25, 2008 on the state of the school.

Kerebangha is a remote Ogoni community without any basic necessity of life. It has no good source of drinking water, no health centre, no electricity, and no access roads. The only educational institution there is the community primary school.

The community is claiming that they have been appealing to the state government and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to assist them in constructing a three-kilometre road that will help to impact positively on the lives of their farmer.

''We are appealing to the Rivers State Government and the NDDC to help us construct the three kilometre Bionu-Kere-Lumene road to help our farmers evacuate their farm produce to the market'', Chief Pie-Uwe said.

The nearest health facility to the community, according to Pie-Uwe, who is also the community traditional ruler, is some 10 kilometres away. ''That is at Bori, the headquarters of our local government'', he said.

Their main source of drinking water is fromMa-Ayor Lake which usually dries up during the dry season. ''Once the lake dries up during the dry season, our people trek for more than four kilometres to fetch water from the Imo River'', the community chief said.

As a result, the community is frequently hit by cholera epidemic, leading to loss of lives In 2007, the community said it lost two lives on their way to hospital in Bori, for treatment.

The state Governor, Chibuike Amaechi, had earlier this month acknowledge publicly that the Ogoni people who were locked in conflict with the Anglo-Dutch oil major, Shell, that culminated in the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his kinsmen on November 10, 1995, have been victims of neglect.

“I agree that you have been cheated, I agree that both the state and Federal Governments must do something to better the live of our people” Governor Amaechi said while calling on the Ogoni people to allow oil explorations to begin in their area, after years of disagreement with oil prospectors, so that more funds would be available for the development of the state.

Amaechi who made the plea on Sunday, January 4, while speaking as Guest of Honour at the 2009 Ogoni Day celebrations at Birabi Memorial Grammar School Bori, which held with the theme “Ogoni After Shell, said the development challenges before the state were enormous, said government needs more funds to execute them.

He claimed that in the last few years the state government has been constrained to use funds from oil prospecting activities in other areas to develop Ogoniland, saying that except Ogonis agree that oil activities resume in the area, so that more funds are available for government, it would be difficult to meet the needs of the people.

The governor, who sympathized with Ogoni people for the years of neglect, said it was time to turn a new page in history, seek for new ways of development and support government so succeed in its efforts to develop the communities.

“If you want us to tell the Federal Government to look for another oil company to exploit oil in the area, we will do that, but you must agree with me that time has come for us to allow oil exploration activities in the area”, he said.

He disclosed that money from the oil in Ogoniland would be used in developing Bori into a modern city but urged youths of Ogoni to stop kidnapping to promote development in the area.

“Again, one thing I will do before the end of our administration is to dualise the road from Saakpenwa to Kono and name it after Ken Saro Wiwa again, because as you know the Stadium Road in Port Harcourt has already been named after him”, he said.

Governor Amaechi said the Ogonis, being part of Rivers state and the Nigeria society, should not do anything that would be seen to undermine respect for the Nigerian state assuring that the views of the people would be respected on issues affecting them,

According to him, “the interesting thing about the Ogoni people is that while they were making the states, countries and the world to know about their oppression, other ethnic groups in the state, who are equally oppressed, did not” and enjoined them to consider him a member of the struggle since he abhors oppression in whatever form.

Governor Amaechi, who announced that a lot was being done for the people in the area of road construction, said electricity would be provided for Ogoniland before June this year, saying that already efforts are being made to temporarily connect the area from Afam Power Station pending when work on the Eleme Gas turbine station would be completed.

He also disclosed that ten primary schools were being built in each of the four local government areas of Ogoni while four modern secondary schools and at least 21 health centres were been constructed in Ogoniland apart from the taking over of the payment of Primary School teachers.

The governor enjoined the chairmen of the four Ogoni speaking local government Councils to use the money saved from the payment of teachers salaries to execute projects that would be of interest to the people.

ENDS

Free Education With Tears In Osun State

•Teachers Are Poorly Remunerated •Pupils Are Extorted

Free education in Osun State appears to have somersaulted as torrent extortions of pupils and students of public schools in the state have exposed the failed implementation of the programme.

According to a public affairs analyst, no one could claim to have seen the education blue-print of Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola-led administration, other than the governor saying he has stamped his feet on the free education policy for elementary and post-elementary schools.

However, the mad rush into private schools in the state, has contradicted the governor’s arguement, as public schools’ teachers have elected to take their wards to the fee-paying schools not to show class, but because the teachers could mess up the future of their wards.

Investigations conducted by OSUN DEFENDER showed that some state commissioners, permanent secretaries and top government functionaries, who have children of school ages, are patronizing the neck-breaking fee-paying schools.

According to an educationist, Professor Omotoye Olorode, the gesture signals an indictment of the government.

Checks have shown that, education is not only monetized in the state, but has also become another drain-pipe for the poor parents that are buying into the free education mantra of the governor.

OSUN DEFENDER, which went round the state with the aim of getting an on-the-spot-assessment on the state of infrastructural facilities, observed that the number of classrooms available for the pupils are still grossly inadequate.

Though some new classrooms constructed by some politicians as constituency projects were seen, the dilapidated structures in the public schools clearly outnumbered the new structures, forcing the schools to abandon the deteriorated ones, a situation that has returned the system to the state of inadequacies.

While some political pundits might have bones to pick with the substandard materials that were used in building some classrooms, OSUN DEFENDER found out that some classrooms have no chairs, desks and office furniture for the teachers, a situation that has compelled the public schools’ managements to instruct their fresh intakes to come along with their chairs and desks.

The public schools in the state now seem to have become a dumping ground, as lack of instructional materials, functional laboratories and introductory technology workshops, has forced some teachers into an unsolicited sabbatical.

Further investigations conducted in some public primary schools across the state, showed that the free meal programme, which has gulped several millions of naira was a mere conduit pipe, as the food stuff given to each pupil of nursery, primaries one and two was far below the money appropriated for it.

Checks showed that N30 was booked per head in selected schools, but before the food gets to the pupil, the stuff worth of N10 would be given.

Information has it that some government agents in-charge of the free meal programme, have turned the programme to a conduit pipe, cheating the pupils in conjunction with some top school management staff.

In a related development, the teachers’ shoes are seriously pinching them, for some of them who are due for retraining courses have not been sent by the education ministry, apart from the remunerative package that could barely take them home.

Despite the fact that teachers went on national strike recently to press home their demands for better pay in form of ‘Teachers Salary Structure’ (TSS), Osun State Government appears to be very reluctant in negotiating the new development with them.

As a matter of fact, the teachers in the state were forced to take up the gauntlet with the State Commissioner for Education, Mr Jelili Adesiyan’s statement, which tended to put the teachers on the government pay-roll in a fix as touching the TSS.

It was reported that pupils in some secondary schools were made to pay for extra-mural classes popularly known as lessons, ranging from N1,500 to N2,000 per term, a situation that has become a subject of controversy in some quarters.

Meanwhile, students of the state institutions of higher learning are still angry with the hike in their school fees, a scenario that has mandated the students to stage a protest in the streets of Osogbo, Osun State capital.

Speaking to OSUN DEFENDER, a parent who gave his name as Samuel Adeoti said that the governor should stop his lip-service to free education, saying that parents are wiser now.

“Each time I see Mr. Governor saying that he has implemented free education in Osun State, I feel insulted. I think he should stop the free education mantra because it has become an old song,” said Adeoti.

However a Vice-Principal in one of the public secondary schools in Osogbo spoke to OSUN DEFENDER under a strict condition of anonymity, said that it was the free education of Oyinlola’s administration that has reduced the burden of the parents in terms of payment.

“I think, we should salute the courage of the governor for the free education programme, because parents are likely to pay more without it,” said the Vice-Principal.

Bauchi reduces number of pupils learning under trees by 40%

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-443723.0.html

Face-to-face with pupils learning under tree in Adamawa
Sunday, 27 September 2009 01:59 Ibrahim Muhammad, Yola
There are about 40 pupils in a class and instead of chairs, they have stones for seats. They have their laps as desks even if they cannot use them because they have no exercise books or pencils.

The tree branches over them luckily shield them from the sun and they are equally lucky the rains had fallen the previous night. What would have bothered them, made them ill, in a village where there isn’t even a dispensary, is the damp cold earth. But they are lucky they have stones that separate their bottoms from the earth.

Their ages range from four to 10 years and are primary one pupils in Grim Primary School, Jada Local Government Area of Adamawa State.

The teacher stands before the class with a whip as his only teaching aid. He has a mini- blackboard and therefore wouldn’t even dream of having chalk or duster. The pupils are taught to repeat English alphabets after the teacher.

With energy and eagerness to learn, they repeat the alphabets, as their parents, who out of sheer zeal to see their children get education, left them behind at school while they planted on their farms from the other side of the village.

The village school is little more than a few benches under a tree; the few textbooks available are used by their teacher Joseph Wagumbi to prepare lessons.

From all indications, this village teacher has little formal training.

Sometimes he teaches three different classes at the same time, moving from one to another to check their progress.

A short drive from Mayo-Mbullo is Jada, the nearest city, where Wagumbi goes to collect his monthly dues as salaries.

“I’ve never got much training though I’m trying hard to enrol into NTI’s pivotal programme,” admits John, one of the more qualified teachers at one of the nearest junior secondary school, the only secondary school in the area.

For many years, religious groups, especially missionaries, in collaboration with community leaders, had been attempting to tackle education - a sector that literally needs to be built from scratch.

Villages like Gawi, Mayo-Mbullo and Bura-Tola all in southern parts of the state are seriously in dire need of school assistance. In Bura-Tola, it will be recalled that this community has placed education as its top priority evidenced by its ability to mobilise and organise itself towards improving the standard of education by constructing of two classrooms.

Challenges

In remote villages visited, most teachers are volunteers or receive small stipends from Non-Governmental Organisations or churches.

Three-quarters of adults in the area are illiterate while school-age children are enrolled - with about one percent of girls finishing primary school.

‘’While pupils and students are learning under sub-human conditions -without ventilated classrooms, sitting under trees, leaking roofs, with no benches, tables, desks, no drinking water, lack of toilets, and no meals, there is a need for the UBE huge funds to be properly used in raising the falling standard of education especially in the area of human development,’’ said Malam Inuwa Buba, a retired school principal in the state.

http://www.sunday.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1364:face-to-face-with-pupils-learning-under-tree-in-adamawa&catid=36:sunday-trust-investigation&Itemid=30

Gbam. Tinubu is a rascal and all his followers are rascals.

Between Tinubu and Jonathan who really is a rascal and a fisherman? Apart from being a rascal, Tinubu is also a fisherman because he comes from Lagos. How is Lagos different from other coastal states in terms of fishing?

Let us see where these stu-pid Yoruba people will get their oil from again. Useless tribalistic leeches. See Tinubu drug pusher dey open that him wide lips dey talk. Should he not be in prison in America? Who let the dogs (Tinubu and ACN leaders) out? Who? Who?? Who Who?

They support anybody other than Ohakim (PDP) at the state level, but will definitely not vote Ribadu or Buhari at the national level. They will vote Jonathan. But again, these guys cannot even vote from the UK.