Inyali Peter|7 July 2016|8:55am
When Cross River State Governor, Senator Ben Ayade pronounced himself Honourable Commissioner for Tourism, most people didn't really understand his intentions behind it. Some who did, for fear of their opinion being unpopular like Elisabeth Noelle argued in Her Spiral Silence Theory kept mute.
Many months after the self-appointment, the consistent disappearance of the governor to sometimes known and unknown destinations every two months has left Cross Riverians pondering over which office Ayade was elected to preside over. Whether as Governor or Tourism Commissioner!
It will be recalled that Ayade returned to the state from his unnecessary foreign trips on the 30th of March to spend just about two months in the state before going AWOL again.
This time, the governor's social media agents painted a picture that seems that the governor was in Canada for the recent Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Canadian government on Technical Education.
After signing the MOU, one would have expected that the governor will return to the state. But unfortunately, the hopes of those who had wished to see the “digital” governor after the signing of the agreement was dashed as many days after the MOU was signed the governor has practically gone missing.
According to reports, his recent MoU is for the establishment of Technical Schools across the three senatorial districts of the state by the Canadian Government.
Also, part of the agreement in the MoU is to have teachers from the state trained by Canadian expert as well as introduction of Uniform for our teachers.
While the intention of the Governor may be to strengthen the education sector especially the technical and vocational type in the state, the approach to doing this has been widely criticised as being ill conceived.
This is so because, government generally is a continuity. Even when a particular party transit power to another, it is expected that some of the good exiting structures built by the previous administration should be maintained or at best improved.
A good example is what the President Buhari's administration is doing in the ministry of transport. The Buhari administration has simply sustained or improved upon the already established structure by the former administration led by President Goodluck Jonathan to revive the railway and maritime sectors.
But, it is regrettable that since Ayade assumed office, he has shown little or no interest in strengthening the existing structures left by former administrations rather he wants to in every sector of the economy introduce his own signature projects.
For instance, the recent MoU which has kept the governor out of the state for almost a month, wouldn't have been to establish new technical schools but to strengthen the existing ones which are realistically on the verge of total collapse.
Across the three senatorial district, there is a technical school in Calabar (South), Ugep (Central) and Obudu (North). These schools, about ten to five years ago were ranked among the best schools in the country. Products of the school were able to distinguish themselves in national competitions.
They (Products of these schools) were able to create a lot of things. I remember Effiong from Technical College, Calabar who later furthered his education in the Electrical Electronics Engineering department in the state owned Cross River University of Technology, CRUTECH who developed a generator which could be powered with water.
Such knowledge and creativity wouldn't have completely be gotten from a university education. When I interacted with him about five years ago, he told me that he started working on the invention when he was in Senior Secondary two in technical college.
For those who were in Calabar sometimes last year would remember a young man from Ugep who built something like a tricycle with generator engine and woods. He drove it all the way from Ugep to Calabar here and spent over a two weeks looking for sponsorship which never came by.
When I had interaction with him, he told me that he finished from the technical school in Ugep and has built a lot of things. He said that while in school, he won so many awards for the state in national competitions. He showed me certificate of recognition when he came first in our state exhibition but has since be abandoned after the competition.
Also, I know of a product from the technical school in Obudu who created an aircraft powered by tiger batteries. This talent also was abandoned. In fact, some of the best electricians in Obudu today and the state generally are products of the three technical schools.
However, another thing to worry about is whether there are still good technical teachers in the state who could rejuvenate this culture of creative and technical thinking among students.
From my observation, I don't think we still have many of them. Now the question of the governor's part of the agreement which has to do with training will come to play. To think of training teachers especially for technical school is one of the greatest aspect of the MOU. But the question of who trains come to play predominantly.
No doubt, Canada system of education is ranked about seven or eight best in the world. But here, we're talking about technical and vocational education. Bringing Canadians who are not too rated in the world in technical education to train our teachers may have little or no impact on the system.
Ayade has penchant for junketing from country to country so sourcing the best for the state in the area of technical education would not be a big deal for him.
Beside, the relevance of this critical aspect of education cannot be overstretched as it has the capacity of creating jobs for the teeming unemployed youths as well as growing our economy so it is worth investing in.
Therefore, the governor would have considered Countries like Finland, China, Japan, Germany, Taiwan etc who are all ahead of Canada in this aspect. What is worth doing is worth doing well. If this administration is ever interested in revamping the technical and vocational education system in the state, the best should be brought to improve the system.
Cross River state don't need new technical schools. What we need is to invest in the existing ones as well as create industrial base for products of the school to thrive.
Our teachers do not need uniform. What they need is training and retraining as well as good welfare package to motivate and boost their morale. And the training should be done without any political undertone. That's to say, we need the best to train our teachers not just anybody in the name of white man.
So when you consider what we have lost as a state within the almost one month of the governor's absence on this likely noneffective MOU especially considering the fact that our experienced Deputy Governor is always not empowered to act in the governor's absence is worrisome.
During the governor's absence, about twenty Cross Riverians died as a result of arm robbery attack or cult clash. Many may argue that the cult issue shouldn't even been mentioned as the victims only reaped what they sow.
But this argument is insensible because during the clash, some innocent people were killed too. Economic activities were affected as people were no longer going about their activities freely like they should. And our reputation security wise deteriorated or is still deteriorating.
President Muhammadu Buhari has set a standard in this country that every responsible head of the three tiers of government should emulate. If the governor emulated the long wait of the President in setting up his cabinet, I wonder why this particular and critical aspect has been ignored.
This is the first time in the history of this country where a President will handover power to his vice to act each time he travels out for up to five days.
Governors too, especially Ayade who is more of a diaspora governor should emulate this. If the deputy governor was empowered, within the period which witnessed series of security challenges ranging from protest by militants, CUDA workers etc, he would have called a high tech security meeting to address the situation.
So far, Ayade's recent trip if not all can best be described as robbing Peter to pay Paul because apart from not following due process of handing over to his deputy by notifying the house of assembly, the MoU he has signed may have little or no impact on our education.
The state has been on a standstill since he left while he has allegedly signed many gainful business deals with partners from Canada for his personal business. Indeed, our loss in his recent trip has been his gain.
When the impact of his many MoUs on Cross Riverians is put head to head with the one hundred million naira (N100, 000 000) public funds that is allegedly expended on him each time he travels, describing this administration as a total disaster in the last one year of it lifespan will be an understatement.
Inyali Peter
Writes from Calabar