The Underfunding And Neglect Of Education In Imo State.

In Nigeria at the federal, bad leadership is on display. The rising cost of living and the prices of goods changing rapidly are a result of bad leadership. Food generally has become unaffordable, forcing many people to go hungry.

There is also an increasing cost of education, healthcare, housing, utilities, petrol etc. The economic hardship in the country is too much for the masses.

Speaking of bad leadership, we also have the problem of bad leadership in Imo State. Government apologists, representatives and bourgeois commentators are painting pictures of all is well in the state. But all is not well. Bad leadership is manhandling us.

Extravagance, wastage and corruption are being replicated at different levels and strata of the state government. Our leaders make their money by the massive exploitation of the working people, dealing with the people with austerity policies and looting the commonwealth.

I am sad at the rot of public schools in the state. The education sector in Imo is neglected and underfunded. For Governor Hope Uzodinma and his cronies, the neglect and underfunding of the education sector in the state is not a problem. Like the adage goes, a hunch-back cow is a big gain for the butcher.

The governor is so much undisturbed about the rot of public schools to the extent that his government had to destroy the only primary school in Umuoba village in Ezeachi Community of Owerri North Local Government Area with no alternative place of learning provided for the pupils. No compensation was paid to the village.The state government is claiming to be building a government house annex extension on the land.

We know that The Land Use Act gives the governor the power to acquire lands but it also gives the people the power to receive compensation. The community should have received compensation before any project should start on the land.

Demolishing the only primary school of a community without providing an alternative place of learning is one of the examples of the governor's attack on public education in the state. With this action the children of Umuoba Village will become dispossessed and incapable of changing their condition as they will be without the education and skills necessary to compete in the new world situation. This of course will have an opposite effect of increasing the ranks of the destitute and frustrated thereby increasing the pool of social discontent from which extremist groups recruit as well as further entrenching the already growing violent youth cult groups and gangs in many communities across the state.

The Uzodinma's administration has been paying lip service to the much needed revitalization of the crucial, but ailing, education sector in the state. The government should do what is right. Demolishing schools without providing alternative places of learning is bad and it shows clearly that the government has no plans to salvage the education sector in the state. There is a collapse of public education in Imo.

Imo state public schools are characterized by overcrowded classrooms, rotten buildings, inadequate teaching classrooms, some having water-logged environment as a result of poor drainage system, ill-equipped libraries and laboratories, inadequate teaching and non-teaching staff, lack of transportation facilities, poor sport facilities, poor ICT services among others. All these are happening in Imo despite mass anger at the policies of the government , mainly because of the absence of a strong opposition political party that will speak for the working class, the youths and the poor people.

What happened to the recruitment of teachers that the governor announced during his second tenure campaigns? The jobs have gone "balablu, blu bulaba'

People are afraid to ask questions. People are afraid to talk. Even the opposition political parties are afraid to talk. The state is more or less a one party state. The government knows that education is a key to liberation. It is a reason they try as much as possible to refuse the education of the enslaved and oppressed people of the state. There is neglect of the education sector, a total neglect.

While the education sector suffers neglect, the political elites fill our media spaces with images and news of their children graduating from foreign schools, often lavishing the people’s wealth to get their own children and sometimes themselves what they deny the children of the ordinary citizen. You take our commonwealth to enrich yourself, and then you take your children out to give them the best of education while you destroy the schools of the children of the common citizen, is there a better definition for heartlessness?

It should be stated, however, that the underfunding and neglect of public education in Imo is only one of the manifestations of the crisis of the Uzodinma's capitalist economic system. The collapsing education system is due to the fact that his government is constituted not by those who show greater interest in the wellbeing of the masses, but by those who can manipulate the people better; and who desire only to serve a parochial profit interest of their class members and cronies. His government has in five years perpetuated a neocolonial capitalist system that has brought the state to ruin as it serves the profit interest of a few business and political profiteers. Save us Oh God .

-Kenneth Uwadi lives in Mmahu-Egbema, Ohaji-Egbema LGA, Imo State , Nigeria and can be reached via 08037982714

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