“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.
::
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.
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...
::
"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...
"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...
::
The Ondo state commissioner for Agriculture, is speaking about Agriculture. Full report here, and that is a good thing.
But, what he says in 2010, a year after his government has been been in Alagbaka is tantamount to hearing a voice from yesterday.
His ministry is planning a confab - code for Jamboree, in Nigeria - in the convoluted intention to 'brainstorm" how to take Cocoa to the next level.
"the government was organising a three-day cocoa international conference in the state capital, Akure, next week, where stakeholders within and outside Nigeria would gather to brainstorm on "how to take the magic crop to the next level."
If after more than a year in a government, in a place so agriculturally endowed as Ondo state, the lead government officer, in charge of Agriculture is only able to come up with a confab-for-discussion, in search of stakeholders then quite frankly, that is the hallmark of Incompetence.
Or, less harshly, lack of foresight.
It is also a reflection of Jankara administration that most probably is going on in Alagbaka. after one year...
There are a lot of simple things that could have been put foward by the Ministry of Agriculture to enhance the production, distribution and exportation of Cocoa In / from Ondo state.
Most of them are so obvious - to any logical and serious minded thinker - they mostly do not deserve one-by-one enumeration.
They most certainly do not need to be discussed at a confab - and heaven knows our confabs in Nigeria gulps more money than they produce results.
Here are ones that comes to mind on the blinkers:
- Does the Ondo state government have necessary realtime data on the volume of Cocoa Beans produced in the state yearly ?
- What are the direct impediments to increasing such production ?
- What solutions has the government proposed to boost production by directly removing these impediments ?
- What about auditing the structure of tax that affects Cocoa businesses in the state ? Is there need to redesign the processes ?
- How is the government encouraging the down-stream processing of Cocoa through careful and organised promotion of private initiatives ?
The commissioner said:
"For us in Ondo State and particularly for this new administration of Governor Olusegun Mimiko, it is time to wake up our people once again to the reality magic cocoa had been for our fathers and the development of the state during their time. At a time when little or nothing was known about oil money, they used agriculture, particularly cocoa to revolutionise development, and what accrued, they used to sustain the then central government. Now is the time to return to that, our people and our government in partnership are determined to return to that era."
You just have ask yourself, do these people realise they are not contesting an election anytime soon ?
If this is the mindset of most of governor Mimiko's commissioners, you have to wonder when they would all realise four years is not so long anymore...
The people of Ondo state does not need their government, nor governor, nor commissioner directly responsible and voted for acting, to wake up after months on the stage, and give them reminders. mere reminders.
They need them to "act up" that the people might remind themselves.
::
"What about the governor of Ondo State? What was his role in all of this? The entire House of Assembly couldn’t possibly have planned a two-week trip to the United States without the governor’s knowledge. What did he think of the proposal?"
"The Ondo lawmakers are still talking...One of them, Hon. Otito Atikase, representing Ilaje Constituency II, described the action of the US Embassy as a “slap on Nigeria as a nation”. The Ondo lawmakers have even resolved to write the National Assembly over the matter.
Well, Pius Adesanmi concludes well:
"Junior thieves in Akure planning to write senior thieves in Abuja. Shior."
So darn! right.
