On the 4th of April 2017 I overhead people discussing in hushed tones in our house around 1am, I was wondered what could be going on such discussion an odd hour of the night. I had to put a call through to my sister to ask what was happening and she said “we are going to the JAMB registration Centre”. I was stunned with mouth left ajar. I asked her again, “you mean JAMB center? 1am?” She said yes. On probing her further I discovered there were only four JAMB licensed registration centers in Ikorodu, as a result the pressure was much on the centers and they had to schedule some applicants for Midnight registration. On getting to the JAMB registration center they met over 80 Nigerians sleeping on the ground, waiting for the registration to commence. There was no security presence at the venue, despite the volatile nature of Ikorodu. It's worthy of note that they left the house that night around 1:30am and returned by 11:30am the next day.
How JAMB degenerated to this level is what I don't know, as at the last UTME of 2016 what you needed to register for JAMB was to buy a registration scratch card from JAMB accredited sellers and walk into a nearby cybercafé to get your registration done. That ends it and you go for your exam. But since the appointment of professor Ishaq Oloyede as the new JAMB registrar the achievements of the previous JAMB management under the leadership of Professor Dibu Ojerinde have been thrown to the bin by the ineffective policies implemented by the new leadership of JAMB.
Ikorodu with population of over 2 million inhabitants has just four registration centers for over 20,000 applicants while less than 1000 registration centers exist nationwide.
In Benue state some applicants staged a violent protest to express their displeasure about the stress they had to go through for their registration. In the process the JAMB office was destroyed. This abominable act should not have happened had JAMB made its registration hassle free.
In an era where the world has become a global village due to the advent of the Internet, JAMB has decided to subject applicants and their parents to unnecessary stress in the bid to register their wards for The examination. The sad part of this is that it has depleted the image of JAMB further as their result doesn't guarantee automatic admission. Individual institutions still subject applicants to another round of screening; an act that shows a lack of faith in the accuracy and competence of JAMB as an examining body.
The policy somersault currently going on in JAMB is a reflection of the sad state of our society. Continuity is never our watchword in Nigeria, we believe in implementing new policies with each administration in power due to our ego, as a result we will keep doing the merry go round with no end in sight to our challenges. The management of JAMB should get its acts together and do the right thing and make the process easier than it used to be.
The former process created job for millions of cybercafé owners in the country and contributed positively to economic growth. This new process will lead to job loss by the cybercafé owners and monopolizing of the process by the few JAMB contractors which will further increase the poverty level in an economy currently experiencing recession.
In the same vein over 300 Nigerians have been lost to the dreaded epidemic of cerebrospinal meningitis in zamfara, Katsina,Sokoto, kebbi and Niger states. The outbreak started in December 2016 and we are yet to curtail the disease by April 2017.The Nigeria center for disease control described the ravaging meningitis as the Meningitis C. The meningitis C according to information made available is an incurable type of meningitis but it can be prevented.
On the third of April 2017 the federal Government in a shameless manner announced that there is no drug for the disease in Nigeria, stating that it would need to import the vaccines from other foreign nations. It's such a sad state of affairs that we need to import drugs for a disease that has been killing Nigerians since December 2016 in April 2017, leading to question about what the national drug research institutes and teaching hospitals have been doing in Nigeria despite the billions budgeted for them. But do we really need to worry? NO we don't! the Governor of Zamfara State has described the meningitis C as an act of God to serve as a punishment to human beings for turning away from his ways.
That meningitis, cholera and typhoid are killing Nigerians in 2017 as seen in Queens College Lagos is a reflection of the sad state of our dear country. Our health sector needs total revamping in other to reduce the number of souls being lost to diseases which have been eradicated in countries not as prosperous as Nigeria.
Conclusively, the management of University of Lagos notorious for its anti-student policies have gone haywire again. The once "Great Akokite" is now living in its past glory with the way students union leaders of the University have been subjected to intimidation by the University management. Events such as scrapping of the university’s Students Union to the introduction of Parents Teachers Association In the school are signs that the Professor Rahman Bello led management of the institution is hell bent on destroying the good name of an institution once renowned for its virile student unions. Recently, some students union leaders of the institution demonstrated at the premises of Television Continental (TVC) Lagos to call for the reinstatement of two blind students rusticated by the University despite their physical challenge. The protest was peaceful as corroborated by the management of TVC through Abisola Agbaje, the company’s legal manager but the leadership of the University authority in connivance with the Nigeria Police Force arrested the students, charging them before a mobile court for unlawful invasion of TVC – an allegation denied by the TVC management. They were sent to Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison by the magistrate.
The colleagues of the affected students had to mobilize for a massive protest at Kirikiri Prison before the release of their detained colleagues including Lawrence success, a blind student rusticated from the University. The constant intimidation of the UNILAG Student Union is a dictatorial act by Professor Bello and the Governing Council of the University and should be condemned.
Students have a right to protest and peaceful assembly and that was done by the student leaders of the University but they end up in a maximum prison as though they were terrorists. The right of these students should not be trampled upon under any guise.
These three incidents have shown the sorry state of our nation and the need for total restructuring of all sectors from education to health, and the economy.
Let's purge Nigeria of these ills.
Adesina Tosin Nathaniel is a Forward Looking Nigerian Youth
For more of his writings visit www.donteewrites.blogspot.com
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