AKAOLU.COM: IF I WERE THE GOVERNOR OF IMO STATE

If I were the governor of Imo state it’ll take me only 4years to turn around the entire lives of the people of the state. I’ll take up just  just 5 sectors and reposition them to perform the wonder. These 5 sectors and the repositioning I’ll undertake are as follows:

1). Education. I don’t need to tell you that I’ll never try the visionless and unsustainable free tertiary education of the present administration. Rather, I’ll use less than 40% of that tens of billions of Naira to embark on massive tertiary education infrastructure rebuilding. At present Imo state has the following tertiary education; Imo state university Owerri, Imo state polytechnic Umuagwo, School of Nursing and Midwifery Mbano, and Imo state university teaching hospital Orlu. I’ll put not less than 1billion Naira over a period of two years into each of these institutions to upgrade their laboratories, libraries, hostels, lecture halls, arts theatres, sports and recreational facilities, etc. These monies will be so monitored by both government and private interest groups such that performance evaluation will be seen by all and sundry as a serious business. The aim will be to stand these schools out in terms of infrastructure in the league of 3 best in their categories—first in Nigeria and in the next four years Africa. 

In Imo state university, I’ll move the faculty of Engineering to Okigwe campus where previous governments had started a new site for them. Also I’ll completely move the faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences to Orlu since they all still go there for one programme or the other during the course of their study. I’ll build not less than five storey buildings each for the faculties and same for hostels. The university will be expanded in terms of facilities so that it can offer more courses especially those 21st century courses in Science, Engineering and Technology, and admit more students [the same for the school of nursing and midwifery, teaching hospitals, and the polytechnic]. The hostels, campus radio, arts theatres, sports complexes, and cafeterias will be built and ran thru private-public partnership. I will reconstruct all the staff quarters in Imo state university into high rising buildings and make them more livable and secure, and then I’d make housing allowance for senior staff very unattractive so that they’ll see the need to use the facility and save government cost. 

At the Teaching Hospital, we’ll ensure that we upgrade the school so that it can begin to offer many post graduate degree programmes in the field of medicine and health sciences and to become a premier medical and health sciences research institution. The target (in this four years) would be to position the school to become the teaching hospital in the country that’ll lead the vanguard in pushing forward the frontiers of medical and health sciences in Nigeria and Africa. In Imo state polytechnic, we’ll do exactly the same thing we did in the university. But we’ll ensure we scrap all the faculties and departments in the school whose courses are not related to technology and move them and their students and lecturers into the university. In this way, we’ll have a polytechnic that’s not distracted with courses like “Shorthand and Bookkeeping”.

The state shall establish an annual Science and Technology Exhibition that’ll be backed by law from the state assembly. This epoch event will handsomely reward winners and encourage healthy competition among students in both secondary schools and tertiary institutions. At the tertiary level students from all categories of higher education—university, polytechnic, school of nursing, colleges, teaching hospitals—from all public and private institutions within the state are welcomed to participate. And like I said earlier, all these wont cost half the amount currently spent by the Imo state governor to run free tertiary education. The state shall encourage the establishment of many private and missionary schools in the state by opening a window of tax rebates for a few years for people who wish to build such schools in the state. For instance, we allow a 5year state tax rebate/waiver for investors who wish to build education investments worth 1billion Naira. The state government shall fully make its policy direction, programmes, and projects in every sector well known to citizens so that every individual can follow up and make it difficult, if not impossible, for any person/s to hijack public good for their personal benefit.

NOBLEMIKE

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