Former Head of State and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, General Muhammadu Buhari has advocated for a free and qualitative education in the country as a measure to check insurgency, just as the governor of Rivrs State, Rotimi Amaechi stated where there is Boko Haram in the North.Buhari and Amechi spoke at the second Progressives Governance Lecture Series held yesterday in Kano.Buhari identified lack of proper education as the bane of insecurity and political unrest in the country and urged the government to review the policy in a way that there will be quality and standard to check insurgency in the country.According to the former Head of State, such a step would go a long way to preventing insecurity.“Until the fallen standard of education in Nigeria is fixed to engage out of school children, the incessant attack on innocent Nigerians, particularly in the North East may get worse.”He added that there was the need for increase in the budgetary allocation to the education sector.
”When we came to government in the 80?s, we appointed Professor Fafunwa to review all the recommendations on education and identify critical points for immediate implementation. We must draw a clear road map of our education to achieve the desired success,” he said.Buhari emphasized that Nigeria need quality education for development and without education the country has limited opportunity for employment.The former head state reminded the gathering of the commitments of late Sir Ahmadu Bello Sardauna, Obafemi Awolowo for dedicating 40 percent of their budget to education.He reminded in emotional laden the stampede of the Nigeria’s youth at stadium seeking for employment.He, however, lamented that there was no solution yet in sight on the rescue of the missing Chibok girls.
On his part, governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Chibueke Amaechi identified education inequality in the north as the reason why insurgency prevailed and gets rooted in the region.Speaking at the 2nd Progressive Governors Lecture Series with the theme ”Crisis in the education sectors” held at Africa Hall, Government House, Kano, yesterday, Governor Amaechi who was the guest speaker at the forum, warned that uneducated youth are time-bomb.The governor who presented a shocking percentage of students passing WAEC in 2013 in the north with Sokoto having 7.6 per cent, Zamfara 5.2, Katsina 7.2, Kano 17.2, Jigawa 11, Borno 16.6, Gombe 4, Bauchi 7, Adamawa 5.3, Taraba 9.6 and Kwara 17.4, warned that the statistics portend a great danger in the north and the country in general.
According to him the country has 70,000 schools, with 1.2 million classrooms, saying the country needed N22 billion annually for the procurement of 200,000 books to each school, arguing that the country unfortunately spent less than 12.2 per cent of education budget on capital expenditure.Rotimi challenged the policy of almajiri schools system as it will have negative impact on the psychology of the child if he lives to be called beggar.Rivers State governor said in 2013, N60 billion was budgeted for education but only 14 percent was spent on capital projects.
“This is the reason why there is Boko Haram”, Amaechi said.
He noted that instead of addressing the problem of falling standard of education, the country established NECO to create more problems and if it fails tomorrow there is going to be State Examination Council, SECO. Amaechi also presented another shocking statistics which portrayed the north as having the largest percentage of youth inactivity, with the North West leading.He also gave another scary statistics of enrollment into Polytechnics and Mono technics in the north where 232,400 students were enrolled but only 51,000 were able to complete.Governor Amaechi decried the level of corruption in the country which is killing the system and wouldn’t allow the nation and the economy to grow and prosper.
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