Columns
Army University Biu: There is certain interest, but certainly not from Borno.
Army University Biu: There is certain interest, but certainly not from Borno.
By: Dr. James BWALA
The Steve Oronsaye report, which failed in its implementation during the Jonathan and Buhari administration, has fallen into the loudest criticisms by Nigerians, especially the people of Borno State, owing to its seemingly reversed posture on the education of thousands who needed to add knowledge through the university system, particularly children of Borno State who are battling with the issues of Boko Haram, to the effect that it almost crippled west education in the state.
Schools are not enough in place in Borno State to cater to the needs on the ground in the fight to dismantle the minds of hundreds of thousands that have been indoctrinated against western education. According to many citizens, the order for the implementation of the Steve Oronsaye report, which named the Army University in Biu town in southern Borno, has a number of political interests, to the effect that some people have been pointing fingers at some politicians in the state for smuggling the de-Army University Biu in the reports.
I have spoken to many people on the earliest day of the report, trying to discredit their minds on certain individuals they are raising their doubts about for possibly working against the progress of the people by probably supporting the government’s idea of merging the Army University Biu with the Nigerian Defence Academy, which, in my opinion, is wrong to have begun to look at the situation from that angle. I have talked with a number of lecturers at both the University of Maiduguri and the Army University Biu to feel their pulse on certain name-callings.
Someone did send a message to me that read, “Mallam: Why should the Nigerian Army University be included in the ongoing implementation of the Steve Oronsaye Report? The report was dated in 2012, while the Army University was established in 2018. So the university couldn’t have been featured in the report. I smell a rat.”
Well, I already heard some names, which I tried to defend fairly in the face of confrontations. Sometimes I feel people who see themselves on the disadvantage side owing to what they heard other people say about them are often eager to move to anger over issues they may not be clear with, especially the Steve Oronsaye report and the involvement of the Nigerian Army University Biu.
I was particularly happy when I saw the Borno state governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, pleading with the federal government over the calculation to merge the Army University with the NDA. He went point blank to state the importance of the Army University to Borno State, to the extent that he pleaded for the federal ministry of education to take over the university as one of the federal government universities if it most affected the Steve Oronsaye report.
The Borno state governor, as I often described him, would not mince words to state the facts. If there are undertones, as some people have already misinterpreted through the gates of misinformation as they have gathered in their underneath assumptions, the professor as I know him over the years would not have been on the pages of newspapers and on radio and TV standing with the people to give reasons for the federal government to rethink its position on the Army University Biu.
Those who are thinking that the rest of the Borno state may not be standing with the southern Borno in the mere allegations should know that the members of the representatives in both the green and red chambers at the National Assembly have come together under one umbrella to speak with one voice over the intentions of the federal government on the Army University Biu as intended, pinning to the Steve Oronsaye report.
I believe that they have gone a long way to advise the government on the needs that must be met to allow the Army University Biu to stand on its own. The Army University Biu must be allowed to function, not as a department or otherwise, and way apart from the regimented NDA. It is to benefit the civilians, who are also tax payers, that makes the country thicker in blending civility and regimented lives.
The Borno state governor’s voice, added to the many voices, has rekindled hope in this renewed hope mantra of the Tinubu Administration, and I hope that we can give space to understand certain situations before we speak of them, and not to add negative thoughts to innocent claims. Borno is home to us, and we must stand with our leaders. The Army University Biu never wanted to be sited in Biu in the first place, and these forces are not from Borno State.
James BWALA, PhD, writes from Abuja.
Army University Biu: There is certain interest, but certainly not from Borno.
Columns
University Courses: Marketable and Non-Marketable Courses—How True?
University Courses: Marketable and Non-Marketable Courses—How True?
By: Balami Lazarus
Let me make it clear hereinafter that I am not against any academic course or the role of guidance and counseling for good career choice, provided that our young men and women will be guided properly. Not long ago, I visited a friend who teaches at one of the universities. It was interesting to be with him, having spent years without seeing each other.
My friend and I took time out and had a long discussion on national issues concerning our country in an attempt to proffer verbal solutions that will only end and stop as mere talks, which most Nigerians are good at doing, including this writer.
In furtherance to our discussion, I was very particular about education and how to improve the sector in terms of standards, academic excellence, and skills. I also raised the issue of corruption in the system. In the process I immediately recalled what some parents and guardians are peddling around saying: “There are marketable and non-marketable courses in our universities.
“For me, I know that for hundreds of years, universities are known to be great centers of teaching, learning,learning and research, contributing to arts, science, and technology for the purpose of national development. My friend was quick to add that “the academic corruption is perpetrated by some lecturers and students, monetarily and sexually.”
Having discussed the corruption bug. I asked the university Don if there are any courses as marketable and non-marketable courses in our universities. This one question gave the Don a good laugh. He looked at me and said, “I have spent years as a teacher in the university academic department. I have never heard of any course(s) known as marketable and non-marketable academic disciplines or any faculty/department that run such courses.
As young secondary school students aspiring to go to the university to study courses of our choices where our interest lies and looking forward to becoming either political scientists, engineers, lawyers, historians, or doctors, and so on. In this regard, we had never heard or been told by our teachers or parents that there are marketable and non-marketable academic courses. Therefore, we should study the marketable courses.
The question I always asked myself was, where are these courses? What we have in our universities are courses leading to different human endeavors. Whatever one decided to call these courses, what is obtainable today is the need to have to add skills to your academic training; employers of labor are today skills-oriented for those who are hoping to be employed.
Balami, a Publisher/Columnist, 08036779290
University Courses: Marketable and Non-Marketable Courses—How True?
Columns
With Fury of a Tempest, Alau Dam Flood
With Fury of a Tempest, Alau Dam Flood
By: Balami Lazarus
Who wants to be a millionaire? a television quiz program anchored by one Frank Idoho, which I hardly missed. I recalled a question once asked: Where is Lake Alau? In the options, there was Borno state among other states. The young man on the hot seat gave a wrong answer. I believe because Lake Alau was then not popular, unlike its cousin, Lake Chad.
Not much is known about the Lake, Alau, and the dam known and called Lake Alau Dam put together. Let me first start with the lake as a natural geographical feature, a large body of water surrounded by land. However, and to the best of my findings, there is no available written document on the history of this lake in question. But it held that the Lake was there many years traceable to the period of the Kanem- Borno Empire. While the present Alau was a small settlement that emerged during the formative years of Shehu’s dynasty from 1846 to the present day. It later grew into a village with people of Kanuri extraction.
Alau is today part of the Konduga Local Government Area of Borno state, some few kilometers away from Maiduguri city center. For the purpose of providing portable drinking water and to improve agriculture through irrigation farming and fishing, a dam was constructed by the past administration of the state from 1984 to 1986. The project was tagged as Water for Borno. Thereby, Lake Alau Dam has become part of the people’s lives, for its importance cannot be quantified.
The recent Alau Dam flood that nearly swept away the city of Maiduguri came with a raging fury of a tempest in September 2024 I will liken to one of the works of William Shakespeare—”The Tempest.”TheTempest”. That of the play was simply and deliberately raised to humble palace traitor Antonio and his co-conspirators, who ousted Duke Prospero, whom they marooned on a deserted island, leaving him to his fate. But ours came with devastating destruction and killing with ravaging effect from head to tail, which has caused unestimated damage.
The flood was not because of the heavy rainfall experienced last season but from the overflow of the dam and subsequent breakoff of its decks. My last visit to Lake Alau Dam with some friends was years back. What was observed and saw were obsolete facilities that were outdated, old, and weakly decked. There was nothing to show that the dam is being cared for. But while growing up in Zaria as kids, we were so used to seeing Kubani and the University (ABU) dams being opened up to let out large quantities of water to avoid overflow and flooding. Has Alau Dam ever experienced that? Has it been dredged?
Therefore, the 13-man committee led by Mr. Liman Gana Mustapha, a professional town planner, may wish to consider these questions as an inroad to finding a lasting solution to the flood matter.
Balami, a Publisher/Columnist. 08036779290
With Fury of a Tempest, Alau Dam Flood
Columns
The Rise and Fall of Garkida, a Social Decline
The Rise and Fall of Garkida, a Social Decline
By: Balami Lazarus
In my recent visit to see my aged mother in Shaffa, a small rural town. In a chat with some of my peers, Garkida came up, and one of us immediately informed the group that the town is socially dredged. I made some findings, and you may wish to agree. I believed students of history my generation were once taught about the rise and fall of great empires, kingdoms, rulers, warriors, and other historical events during our secondary school days. In the cause of those lessons, our imaginations were always taken far to other lands.
We never thought that someday there would be a fall or decline of our own, which could be a town, village, or settlement, but never like the fall of the known historical empires/kingdoms of Oyo, Jukun, Fante/Ashante, Kanem-Borno, Songhai, etc. To rise is a difficult task in life or in the course of growth, be it individual, town, or city. But to fall is easy. Garkida has rose and fallen, or, to say, declined socially. Once a bubbling rural town in Buraland, being in Gombi Local Government Area of Adamawa State has nose-dived from the social ladder.
As a historian, I will not subscribe to the use of the term fall; it will defile my histo-journalistic sense of reasoning because Garkida is a proper noun and is there real. So it will rather go well with me and perhaps some readers of this essay to accept Declined as a better use of historical language for the purpose of this work. I am not a native of Garkida and have never lived there, but it was the home of my cousins and nieces long before now.
As a young man, I had it well with friends when the town was in her social chemistry and apogee. In spite of her decline, the arrears in our kitty, notwithstanding the flow of time, are the mutual friendship, an indelible mark in our social life. I remember clearly as a holiday-maker with my grandmother at Shaffa, Garkida was the in-thing in our youthful days because of the mass social activities that used to take place there.
There were social interactions with friends and relatives from different places, parties of all kinds—a social front burner. And to most of my peers, it was the center of today’s mobile social handle—Facebook, where you meet and make new friends. That was Garkida for us. As a rural town, it flourished with glamour, elegance, and pride, triggered by the social engineering of Who is Who? The creme de la creme of her sons and daughters who made nane in their vocations or professions that promoted and spread the name of Garkida as social lighthouse.
It was the abode of top military brass in the ranks of generals. Her businessmen once made the town tick as a cluster of has. It was the nerve of vogue and socialites in Buraland. There was declined in this capacity. Historically, Garkida came to the limelight and appeared on the colonial map of Nigeria in 1923, when the white Christian missionaries of CBN/EYN first settled there and made it their home on the 17th March of the aforementioned year. The beginning of her social mobility started in the 1970s, through the 1980s, to the dawn of the 1990s, her zenith.
I doff my hat for the united daughters of Garkida; credit goes to them; their exposures, taste, beauty, love, elegance, sophistication, unity of purpose, and social agrandisement made them wives of husbands of men from far and near who are of different walks of life. The women of Garkida were a central force, once the venus de milo of the town before its social decline. I cannot conclude this article without appreciating the fact that Garkida was the center of learning and vocational training and once the hold of good and efficient healthcare services in Buraland and its neighbors. Today, Garkida is no longer in the vantage position.
Balami, a Publisher/Columnist, 08036779290.
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