Did the Cross River State government lie to the world, when it claimed to have spent a whooping N17billion in the attempt to handle basic education related issues in the state? Or, was it just a politically motivated pronouncement meant to score some points?
These are some of the questions that the people are asking the commissioner for education, Prof Steve Odey, after he told journalists penultimate week, that the government of Senator Bassey Otu had spent so much on education.
The pronouncement was a response to criticisms by members some citizens, that the government was paying lip service to education, allowing public schools to decay, while public funds were being spent to secure the political future of the gladiators.
TNN findings show that many schools across the state are still in very deplorable state. In fact, some of the pupils and students still sit on bare floor to learn in some parts of the state. The situation at Government Primary School, Alomeye, Bekwarra Local Government, where young pupils sit in a dilapidated structure with broken walls and a leaking roof, is an example.
The situation has provoked many of the citizens who have questioned the government’s sincerity on the matter. One of them, Mr Ogenye Bernard Odey, wrote on his facebook wall that he actually thought he was dreaming when he heard the government’s claims.
He said: “I previously thought I was dreaming, but I later discovered I was not asleep. In a state where people are not blind, a professor has made the astonishing claim that ₦17 billion has been invested in Cross River State education.
“This assertion is particularly egregious given that the state has only 18 local governments, and even if ₦500 million were allocated to each, the impact would be evident. Regrettably, students in Calabar still sit on the floor to receive lectures, and a commissioner has shamelessly claimed that ₦17 billion was spent, as if it were a paltry sum of ₦17,000.
“One cannot help but wonder how some professors attain their positions. Stephen Odey, I suspect this is why our ancestors recalled you from the senate. Did your own Yala local government resemble one that received even ₦100 million in education grants?
“Have you ever visited St. Augustine Primary School in Boki, where the first Nigerian Senate President attended? If ₦17 billion were indeed invested in our educational system, the results would be apparent, not merely something you claim.
“Unfortunately, your government appears to be built on criminality, and the Cross River State House of Assembly has become a tool for spreading falsehoods to the public without being held accountable. Stephen Odey, the people of Yala are not known for such behavior; it seems you are hungry and eating dry cassava with red oil. Posterity will remember all of us.”
Apart from the school at Bekwarra, the sight at the Agbo Comprehensive Secondary School, Ekureku, Abi Local Government Area, Cross River State, is equally very disturbing, There, students sit on bare floor to learn.
There are no desks, no chairs and the walls are cracked. The situation in most of the schools in Abi/Yakurr were the same, until Dr Alex Egbona, the member representing the federal constituency decided to draw the federal government’s attention to some of the schools that have now received a facelift.
Some of the schools he has caused the federal government to either build or rehabilitate include those in Ediba-Anong, Agbara-Ekureku, Mboti-Imabana, Ikpalegwa and Lehangha.
TNN made efforts to reach the commissioner for education on Tuesday, to get clarifications. But he did not respond to our whatsapp messages.
