News went round the state and beyond that the Kogi State Government paid bursary to students of Kogi State origin in higher institutions. From the news available to us accessed on https://kogireports.com/kogi-students-laud-bello-over-bursary-as-8250-students-benefit/, about 8250 students received the bursary, and under the aegis of NAKOSS, expressed their appreciation.
The news of the bursary payment is a welcome development and a paradigm shift from the usual lethargic attitude of the government, especially to any form of payment. In effect, the news can only please those who have never benefitted same from any government in the past.
The Kogi State University, Anyigba has over 20,000 students; the Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja has over 15,000 students; the Kogi State College of Education, Ankpa has over 10,000; the Kogi State College of Education (Technical), Kabba has over 8,000 students. The numbers listed exclude students of Kogi State origin schooling at the Federal Polytechnic, Idah, and the Federal College of Education, Okene. Students of Kogi State origin are spread across the country in various institutions. When the Governor or his supporters go about town celebrating the payment of bursary to the paltry 8250 students living within Kogi State, then there is a problem with the government in terms of responsibility and self-adulation.
I may have been oscillating in my political commentaries in terms of how I see a government, sometimes condemning and the other time praising, and that I may not have been a supporter of two governments of PDP, managed by Ibrahim Idris and Captain Idris Wada, I will never hide behind the thicket of political attrition to shield the facts. If Bello, for example, has good legacies, regardless of how the world might see him, I will always sing the song in deviance of what corrosive comments might have been paased about him. I am a maverick, and I see things from the eagle-eye of positivity with a view to making a change. For the sake of clarity in order to lend credence to my argument, I will cite an example here.
As a student of the University of Maiduguri, in 2006 and 2007, I received bursary payments of N5,000 each from the then Government of Kogi State, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris. Even though the money was not up to tens of thousand that Bello paid the students of Kogi State origin of late, the fact that Ibro paid students of Kogi State origin schooling across the country (and not only limited to students schooling in Kogi State then) shows that Ibro made better government in terms of students’ welfare. As the bursary was paid in Maiduguri then, so was it paid in Sokoto, Port-Harcourt, Lagos, Kano, etc. Note that the payment of the bursaries by Ibro’s government ran hand in hand with the payment of the SSCE registration fees for students of government secondary schools across the state. The payment of WASSCE and NECO fees was not the only service towards the standardization of education in the state undertaken by Ibro’s government. Aside the fact that Ibro constantly and promptly paid lecturers of the state’s institutions their salaries and entitlements, attempt was not made to intimidate, let alone lay any lecturer off. Civil servants were also receiving their salaries constantly in the face of these payments. No excuse was given why the bursary or salaries would not be paid then.
With the lean number of civil servants and lecturers in the Kogi State University today as a result irreconcilable difference and or the battle of supremacy between the State Government and the lecturers today, as well the erratic payment of workers’ salaries and pensions, the bursary payment of N18,000 or less to less than 10,000 students is not an achievement a serious government should make a noise about, considering the chunk of money the State Government has been saving from the non-payment of salaries and pensions to Kogi State ghost workers and pensioners as well as the legitimate ones. Of the 8,250 students paid, what percentage of the students comes from the KSU, KogiPoly, KSCOE, etc.? If students of Kogi State origin in Kogi State benefitted from the bursary, what happens to the rest of the students that school elsewhere? Are they not supposed to benefit too? If they did not benefit, then, what is the beauty of the payment when even those who are in the state did not all get the bursary they deserve?
While the world appreciates the government’s thoughtfulness in paying a handful of students the bursary it paid recently, the government cannot today pretend to love the students at this time, and the bursary payment is not one of the ways of showing same. What the students need desperately is not the bursary but the financial support of their own parents since bursaries are no monthly grants. If the government pays the workers’ salaries and pensioners’ pensions, parents will be able to take up their own responsibilities of paying their children’s school fees and make other payments too without any recourse to what pittance the students are offered as bursary by the government; the government cannot pretend to support education in the state when the vibrant, active, knowledgeable and experienced lecturers of the Kogi State University, Anyigba were sacked and replacements have not been made till today, and those who are in active service are not paid, demoralising their efforts and attenuating their zeal. If only Yahaya Bello knew how many students are dying of hunger as a result of parents not being able to support their wards; if only Bello knew how many students he had recruited – albeit indirectly – into prostitution, begging and or other crimes, he would not have taunted them with any provocative bursary, or made a noise about it.
– Odih Daniel N.,
Kaduna, Nigeria.
