Ondo state Students v. Mimiko 2010 : Round 1

Ondo students fight government over bursary. from 234Next.

There goes the headline.

Hear governor Mimiko.

“Despite the fact that the staffers of the state scholarship board carried out verification exercise in some universities, some students still manipulated the exercise,” Mr. Mimiko said. “We discovered a large scale racketeering at the State Scholarship Board, hence we stopped the disbursement and we had instituted a serious investigation into the activities of the those in charge of the fund.”

You couldn't not but feel sorry for the poor choice of words. 

If all you wanted to do, is investigate, then you actually do not need to STOP disbursement. You might suspend disbursement, postpone it but you do not stop it. 

Again a sorry reflection of the  depth of government folks around Alagbaka...

But on a broader level, this comment, on the 234Next's article quite sums up the notion of student bursaries:

I studied hydrology as an undergrad. During the 5/6 years I was in school, we developed models for spillways, calculated runoff and discharge from streams and rivers... ALL THEORY! NOT ONE SINGLE LAB, NOT ONE! Nigerian students are just as misguided as the leaders. They do not need bursaries, rather, they need quality education, more funding for their universities and such. How much does the government give each student on an annual basis anyway? Ten, Fifteen, Twenty thousand naira? Will that take care of their needs for two months? Some would argue that increased funding may transfer costs to the students. True, but funding also includes provision of loans for these students to complete their education. Such measures are more far reaching than the stupid bursaries. That is why they should relocate to the government office, not some pittance termed bursaries!

Go Figure.

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Adekunle Ajasin University...The price of sins foretold...

Adekunle Ajasin University, is known to many people on the streets as a glorified secondary school.

In this analysis, McNezer Fasheun takes you on the road to why:

By the time Pa Adefarati became the elected governor of the new Ondo State, he did not blink an eye before he sited the state-owned University in his relatively rural home town, Akungba Akoko. Up till today, Akungba has not developed to the standard of being a University town as lecturers and students live in places like Akure, Ikare and Oka-Akoko, from where they shuttle daily to come to school. Just as a ritual to ward off a curse, the university was named Adekunle Ajasin, a superficial arrangement that has nothing but cosmetic benefits to its administration. Successive vice-chancellors, has never spent 24 hours at Akungba Akoko at any point in time. This invariably has affected the quality of its faculty by way of lecturers the place would attract.

And It ends with a timely advise to the current occupiers of Alagbaka:

To correct the anomaly, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, the incumbent Governor, must borrow a leaf from older and newer universities which run multi-campus universities. At present, the Osun State University has distributed its campuses in such a manner that no section of the state could feel short - changed. Ifetedo, which, in old Western Region, had shared a community secondary school, with Okeigbo now hosts the faculty of law campus while the humanities are based in Osogbo.

The Adekunle Ajasin University could well leave the faculty of Arts and Management Sciences at Akungba, its present site and central unit. The faculty of law could move to Akure, the state capital with equitable distance to the Benin Judicial Division. Ondo town, and its State Hospital, would better serve as the location of the university's College of Medicine and Teaching Hospital respectively, since Ondo is equally equidistant between the Northern and Southern Senatorial districts of the state. The lately established Ondo State University of Science and Technology could then become the faculty of Engineering, while a school of Marine and Oceanographic with Petroleum institute could be sited at the Igbokoda and Ilaje Ese Odo Local Governments. Each of the campuses would have its administrative structure with a provost as head.

You can only hope they are listening...

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Mimikonomics - Of Governor Olusegun Mimiko's administration...Summations and Posers from Wole Ademefun

You do not get to read articulate analysis, if detailed one, on Ondo state affairs too often.

But, here Wole Ademefun in Mimikonomics - A Policy of Impulse And Waste? does  one that might best be considered summations and posers for the Olusegun Mimiko government.

Hear him.

"Since February 24, 2009 when Mimiko came on board, every project undertaken by government has been on impulse or by donation. Right on the podium on inauguration day, he assured that he would meet the people in their homes and institute the production of data capturing all purpose I.D. cards within his first 100 days without counting the cost.

The I.D card project was to be quickly followed by well-publicised public housing projects to be located in the state capital...

and 

"Also, 300 stalls are being erected at a cost of N150 million or N500,000 per stall.

It is even more ridiculous that the reason for locating the market at Eru Oba within the precincts of the Deji's palace, a location that will generate further traffic into both Arakale and Oba Adesida roads will negate the government's intention to ease traffic on both roads!

If there are any pointers to how ludicrously thought-less or insincere the entire apparatus of Alagbaka government is, it can be seen in the catalogue of flip-flop and impuse decisions, which the article points out even with vague attempts tuck them in comparison to the government-stealing era of Agagu.

What appears most tragic in the ongoing show of surface-dressing that Mimiko's government represents, is the indictment of the character and quality of the governor's people.

To say, Ondo state citizenry expected a lot more would be an understatement...

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Ondo Budget 2010: Live on the Internet ?

"The N124.3 billion budget, out of which N43.4 billion was set aside as recurrent expenditure and the lion share of N80.9 billion as capital votes, was passed into law by the Assembly last Thursday in a record period of less than a month of scrutiny by the Budget and Appropriation Committee."

That's how much Ondo state is expected to spend over the next 365 days as in the Guardian report here.

But its the bit here:

"THE Ondo State Appropriation Law 2010, the legal instrument for the current fiscal plan of the state government, has been posted on the Internet..."

that got my attention.

They made it appear as though the mere posting ( to use their choice of word ) such information to the Internet, is some kind of an achievement...Only in the land where Ideas are truly scarce.

But wait, more disaster. The budget cannot be found.

Nowhere!.

Having surfed http://www.ondostate.gov.ng/ for up to ten minutes, a direct link to the budget Cannot be seen.

Yet, ONe sees this:

and 

this.

Why is the Governor's cake-cutting-jamboree getting home-page presence, when a basic piece of information, so critical to the the very soul of governance, heck! the people, is un-seeable?

Or at best, buried away somewhere ?

:

The managers of this government, and its website authors need to step up their games. 

It is not election time, and they can learn a lot from visiting other government website such as:

this, South Africa,

- http://www.gov.za/

or this, 

http://www.ghana.gov.gh/ Ghana,

or, if feeling very ambitious indeed, 

this:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm UK. 

A government's website should be about the Ideas of governmenance and policies, and one should find all the links to the right departments and latest Information on the home page.

If one wanted to see the governor's wive at cake-cutting, their wedding ceremony would probably be a better version to watch...

So much, for posting the budget onto the Internet...

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