Muhsin
Ibrahim
muhsin2008@gmail.com
@muhsin234
It
is with a heavy heart and despair I write this article. I am now more than
convinced that my earlier denunciation (Daily
Trust, pg. 51; 6/01/2016) on the way the Kano state government (KNSG) handles
the infamous sodomy case involving some boys at Hassan Ibrahim Gwarzo College,
Kano fell on deaf and dumb ears. The resolution to finance their WAEC and NECO examinations
was finalized and could not be reversed or even adjusted. I am not jealous nor
unhappy with that; my concern is largely on the other multitude boys and girls
literally abandoned by the same government to fend for themselves, while they
require, in fact deserve, more assistance. Yet the government is still mute and
unmoved by my and others diatribes. We cannot and will not, however, perhaps
unknown to the government, relent. We demand for justice and fairness, and
justice should be served.
I
was triggered once again to revisit this terrifying topic for several reasons.
Some people might say that what’s done cannot be undone; hence the case should
be dead and buried. It shouldn’t. The dust has yet to settle. Here are two most
relevant reasons:
First,
the many unnecessary appointments of, majorly, special assistants (SAs), done
by the government. Second, is the government’s loud silence on the fate of
hundreds of poor students whose schools were burned in the recent spate of fire
accidents in schools in Kano. For the former issue, my younger brother, Comrade
Adnan Mukhtar Tudun-Wada has written a detailed and constructive criticism on
that (Daily Trust, 02/01/2016). Those undeserving appointments, he traced, include
SAs to the APC Women Leader, on automobile, on mobilization, on Islamiyya schools, tertiary institutions;
several others on media (one of whom announced his appointment on Facebook in
shoddy English!), among others. One of the SAs is permanently stationed in
Abuja!
The
fire accidents that have so far razed down about six public (boarding) schools
in Kano are absolutely pathetic and petrifying. Some students have lost their
lives, others sustained from severe to mild injuries, and many others were lucky
to have narrowly escaped but with nothing of their belongings. The KNSG has
promised to seriously look for ways to prevent the lives and property of the
schoolchildren. But so far, very little or nothing is, unfortunately, still done
compared to the ways and the zeal the government handles Hassan Gwarzo’s sodomy
case.
My
younger sister, for instance, was among the escapees. She had to borrow clothes
to cover up as everything she owned was gutted by the fire in their dormitory
at Government Girls College, Jogana. The accident happened months (!) back,
almost the same time the Hassan Gwarzo case came into limelight. Since then,
nothing is heard from the government. The state ministry of education always says
one thing: listen to the radio for an announcement. Remember that some of those
students in all the affected schools are graduating. They are, as Gwarzo’s
students, about to sit for their WAEC and NECO. Why is the government silent on
their fate? Shouldn’t they be relocated to other schools?
I
don’t want to blame the government for the fire; no one should. Nobody can
avert an accident. But the government ought to reasons that many of those
students come from less privileged families. For many among the girls, their
parents let them to attend school against their volition but for external
pressures. I don’t have to remind you of the situation of girl child education
in the state, or the North in general. In view of this, they deserve more than
just relocation. They ought to be given compensation of a sort. Any girl that
lost her belongings such as mattress, wardrobe, reading and writing materials,
etc to the fire should be given money, or at least a portion of the cost, to
buy new ones. All children of both the poor and the rich are your wards, Dr.
Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Khadimul Islam.
As
a last note: thousands other current SS III students are being on the
tenterhook, (im)patiently waiting for the release of their Qualifying Exams
results. They need to know whether or not they could get the government’s
sponsorship for their WAEC examination. I am sure their payment is a paltry for
the government who was able to pay forty million naira (N40, 000,000) for merely
70 other students, which is more than five hundred thousand (N500, 000) per
head. Here the payment must be far lower, and only the qualified ones deserve it. It will not cost the government more
than thirty thousand naira (N30, 000) per (poor children’s) head, I think.
Thus, nothing whatsoever is difficult. The students should not be tensed. The
scrap of free education in the state will not change this age-old tradition.
I
hope the government will unhesitatingly oblige our request. We pray to Allah,
the Exalted, to guide and protect the governor and all his assistants, amin.
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