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Mai Mala Buni: The Unsung Hero

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Mai Mala Buni: The Unsung Hero

By: Ibrahim Jirgi

The universal definition of unsung hero is a person who has achieved great things or committed acts of bravery or self-sacrifice, yet is not celebrated or recognized. An unsung hero may be someone who acts bravely in battle without notice, or someone who sacrifices himself for the good of the group, without recognition.Situating the Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni in this context, one sees a simple young man leading aa state through and out of a decade of devastating conflict into flourish.Largely unsung, Mai Mala Buni has recorded giant strikes in every developmental sector in the state he governs, though noiselessly.

Buni’s numerous achievements in Yobe that can be seen and felt remained however largely unsung until President Muhammadu’s recent visit to commission some of them. The President himself was elated as he was taken round the projects undertaken by Governor Buni across the state.President Buhari was so excited by the level of development he saw in Yobe that he could not help commending and recommending the Buni model at his next port of, Katsina State, the same week.They included the Damaturu ultra-modern market, Maternal and Child Health Complex at the Yobe State Teaching Hospital, the 2600 Housing Estate in Potiskum and the Damaturu Mega School at new Bra-Bra. 

Others were the ultra-modern State Command Headquarters, the Police Tertiary Hospital and access roads, and Police Secondary School.These are just a few of the physical projects executed by Governor Buni that Buhari was able to commission in the short time available for his visit. Physical infrastructure aside, Buni has recorded gigantic achievements in the area of human development involving educational uplifting, training, empowerment of youth and women and skills acquisition. 

Just recently for instance, Governor Buni approved the employment of 2,670 Degree, Diploma and NCE holders to provide graduates with job opportunities, and to fill existing gaps required for efficient service delivery in the state.The breakdown of the beneficiaries include 890 University Degree graduates, 890 Higher National Diploma and National Diploma holders, and 890 National Certificate of Education graduates.

The beneficiaries were drawn across the 178 political wards of the 17 local government councils.Thus the Buni government has provided all parts of the state with equal opportunity and sense of belonging and ownership of governance.Three years after he was  sworn in as governor, Buni has been untiringly creating, restructuring, and reshaping the education sector of the state, and his projects have taken Yobe to another great level of excellent achievements from the basic to the higher levels. 

In this regard, Buni has introduced various educational plans, scholarship programs, rehabilitation of school buildings, teachers’ welfare, and other standard implementations.He came up with a plan to build modern schools around the state. He began with the projects of model primary schools in the areas of Buni Yadi, Damaturu, Geidam, and Potiskum local governments. The schools were built with modern academic standards. 

Each school has 48 well-furnished classrooms, 12 staff rooms, and several computers for E-learning and other facilities as a means of revamping the educational status of Yobe State.Buni has also focused on school feeding programs by disbursing billions of naira to support students’ meals, this serves the aim of encouraging children to be punctual and concentrate more on their studies. 

On top of that, it also serves as an element to draw the attention of those out-of-school children to get enrolled in school. The school feeding program has helped thousands of pupils fight malnutrition and drastically reduced the number of out-of-school children in the state, if not eliminated.Similarly, the Governor has carefully looked at the welfare of teachers by ensuring stable payment of their salaries and promoting them based on their dedication. 

Most of the teachers from the public schools have shared positive reviews on the receipt of adequate welfare, which encourages them to teach the pupils diligently. The Governor’s performance on promotion is another key role in revamping education in Yobe because every staff member faces equal treatment.Buni went ahead with school renovation, from basic to higher institutions. 

READ ALSO: https://newsng.ng/bosg-to-partner-apwen-for-empowerment-infrastructural-development/

The projects which commenced across all the local government areas of Yobe State have led to reforms in the outlook of the most dreaded buildings, learning facilities, accommodation, and other academic amenities needed to carry out educational programs.Basic education has benefited from the rebuilding and transformation of school projects and from looking after the well-being of teachers. 

Most of the schools with old buildings and excessive need for facilities benefited from the rebuilding projects all over the state. The teaching materials were also provided with enough space in buildings to accommodate thousands of students, for the essence of outgrowing education status in Yobe State.

The idea of reforming schools by the Buni administration is to change the system of education in Yobe and to bring about a new development policy of drawing back the minds of young children and their parents to get them enrolled in schools with a good standard of teaching and learning for a better future.

At the higher levels, Buni, has displayed an unbeatable performance in various institutions of the state. He provides new departmental buildings at Yobe State University, construction of laboratory rooms, lecture rooms, and roads in Shehu Sule College of Nursing and Midwifery, Damaturu, and similar projects in higher education fields.

Furthermore, there was a scholarship provided by the governor for 233 indigenous students of Yobe State to Glocal University in India, and hence to other countries such as Russia, England, and others. The scholarship program is to promote the system of education in Yobe State and acquire professional courses for helping people.Also, Buni has ordered the massive employment of 2,670 teachers with a Diploma in NCE, and Degree certificates with the number of unemployed graduates drastically reduced across the state.

In the field of politics, Buni as National Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) of the All Progressives Congress, has without doubt succeeded in reviving, energizing and repositioning  the party for victory in future elections.Under Buni, the fortunes of the party has been brightened by the re-organisation and reconciliation of members across the party, so that adding with the work done by the Buni committee, the party has bounced back to life.He was able to achieve this feat in the face of multiple crisis that engulfed the party leading to litigations and presenting a picture of selfishness and division.

***Jirgi, a journalist and Managing Director, Triple Cee Media, writes from Abuja.

Mai Mala Buni: The Unsung Hero

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University Courses: Marketable and Non-Marketable Courses—How True?

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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?

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With Fury of a Tempest, Alau Dam Flood 

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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 

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The Rise and Fall of Garkida, a Social Decline

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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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