Akwa Ibom, one of the highest oil-producing states in South-South Nigeria, by virtue of the quantum of oil cash rolling in from the centre monthly, should pride itself as the centre of excellence in human capital development and building of super infrastructure.
But on paper, so it seems as portrayed by the governor, Pastor Umo Eno, who is won’t to wax political rhetoric at every fora that “the federal government led by President Bola Tinubu, has pumped so much petro-dollars to states for subnational development,” but the reality, LEADERSHIP checks revealed, points to antithetical verbose for cheerleaders to clap for cash.
Worst affected is the education sector where millions of naira are voted yearly as budgetary cash to fund education, yet the so-called free education policy inherited from successive administrations from 2008, under the governor Godswill Akpabio, remains a mirage.
It was gathered that during the era, monthly subventions were given to principals and school heads, for meals and other running costs to make the free education policy functional and attractive to pupils, to discourage out-of-school children and enhanced enrolment figures across the 31 local government areas.
But feelers from principals and head teachers revealed an unpalatable school environment, fraught with exploitation, widespread vandalism of education infrastructure, and illegal school charges, forcing withdrawal of pupils by distraught parents to embrace independent and private schools’ systems.
The governor, in apparent move to balance the dichotomy between public and private schools, it was learnt, had built and commissioned model schools – ARISE Model Primary/Secondary Schools across the 10 federal constituencies, but checks revealed that the radiation of positive impacts could not be felt because public schools across the 31 LGAs are still bereft of basic infrastructures with pupil/teacher ratios still alarming.
It was gathered that the high charges by managers of the public primary and secondary schools have combined with other sharp practices to defeat the essence of the free and compulsory education at the basic level, forcing the ill – afford parents to embrace shabby and shanty private schools dotting the 31 LGAs, and the suburban communities peripheral to the capital, Uyo.
However, the proliferation of such makeshift schools, according to Chief Udosen Inyang, a community leader in Etinan LGA, “have become an eyesore, a big disgrace and highly disappointing scenario especially in an oil State that prides itself as one of the best aesthetically alluring environment.”
“I have a lot of such makeshift schools around my domain, some are like shrines, but some parents because of hardship and low mentality still take their children and wards there,” he noted
He also blamed the locations of public schools in distant places, recalling that the danger pupils in local communities went through traversing several communities in order to access public schools in the hinterlands has become frightening, lamenting that while some went missing, others drowned trying to cross a rickety bridge to school.
The most tearful, it was gathered, were basic schools in some riverine communities of Eastern Obolo, Oron, Mbo, Uruan, Esit Eket, Itu, Okobo LGAs, where the fishermen lamented that access to conventional schools by pupils remains a daily nightmare.
“Pupils walk several kilometres to and from schools crossing the rivers with attendant dangers of being attacked, kidnapped or drowned,” Bassey Ating, local fisherman told our Correspondent at Ibaka beach, Mbo LGA.
For Instance, it could be recalled that a stagnant pool converted to dam for agricultural purposes, attracted to Ayadehe, a local community in Itu LGA by a prominent politician from the Itu/Ibiono Ibom federal constituency, had consumed couple of pupils trying to access school in the nearby villages cut-off by the water.
Worried by negative images of such educational structures in a supposed oil state that ranks amongst the top three in crude oil output and revenue from the federation account, the commissioner for education, Prof. Ubong Umoh, has launched a massive clampdown.
Leading the education task force team to many of such emergency classes operated in churches on week days and the normal church activities on weekends, the commissioner frowned at some startling discoveries that the so-called schools have been operating for years, defrauding parents, but without the Authority To Operate (ATO) licence, and consequently sealed them off.
Abandoned filling stations, poultry farms, shops, business containers and other unedified platforms were discovered to have been converted into makeshift schools.
“The ministry vehemently disapproved of the unsafe facilities and unhygienic environmental conditions in which many private schools operate in the state,” he warned.
He observed with dismay that poultry farms, abandoned filling stations, lock-up shops and church halls were converted to emergency schools to accommodate pupils from the nursery to the secondary levels.
“More disturbing were situations where shanties in bushes and make-shift shelters built over drainages were used as classrooms,” he noted.
Therefore, he charged proprietors of such unwholesome and mushroom private nursery, primary and secondary schools operating without the official approval to immediately close shops or be prepared for prosecution if they reopen again for such brisk business.
“Violators will face arrest and prosecution during subsequent inspections,” he warned.
Some of the makeshift schools shut included St. Philips Academy; Nemty International School; Christ Restoration International School; Kembridge International Academy; Godstar Bright Academy; Queenmax Peculiar Treasure International Schools; all in Uyo LGA.
Others were Gracious Steps Royal Academy, Toppers Academy, Abak Houston International Schools, Purple Hills Schools, Sparkling Height Schools, Beloved Child of God International School, Glorious Future Academy, Spring Success International School at Nsit Ibom LGA and Marcus Garvey Drillers Foundation Schools, Nsit Ibom LGA; among others.
