Kunle Akogun
9 November 2009
opinion
Lagos — Although as a Muslim, I fervently believe in the sixth Article of Faith, which is the inevitability and immutability of predestination, I think those unfortunate victims of penultimate weekend's boat mishap in the Bukuro border town of Baruten Local Government area in Kwara North needn't have perished the way they did. They wouldn't have died in Nano River if they didn't have to travel across the country's borders in search of the basic facilities that the Baruten Local Government Council, nay the Kwara State government ought to have ordinarily provided for them.
Don't mind the fruitless effort by the Baruten Council Chairman, Alhaji Aliyu Muhammed to disown the accident victims, which made their lot to be triple jeopardy: They were neglected in life; they died while struggling to make ends meet; and they were denied at death by those they supposedly voted to look after their welfare.
Any way, those hapless citizens, mostly school children, had to die in search of the proverbial Golden Fleece. We are not talking about tertiary education here, but elementary education that is often taken for granted even in the most backward societies. But Bukuro village in Gwanara district of Baruten Local Government area, where most of the canoe-capsize victims came from, virtually has no functional primary school. For, what type of primary school will be staffed with only three teachers at a time the airwaves are always abuzz and newspapers always saturated with reports of multi-billion naira budget for primary education developments by States Primary Education Boards (SPEB) and the Education Trust Fund (ETF)? It appears the Baruten Council has no access to the SPEB and ETF funding for it to have left a primary school in a community of 20, 000 people with only three teachers for such a long time.
But the children of Bukuro village and their clairvoyant parents know the importance of education. Knowing that their future is gloomy without education, they decided they must attend better-staffed primary school, whatever it would take, even if it means going "abroad" for it! Unfortunately, in a bid to fulfil this legitimate yearning, the pupils died!
According to media reports of the boat mishap, the victims, about 50 of them, met their untimely death when two dugout canoes, in which they were travelling, capsized on Nano River. The victims, who included market women and school children, were said to be heading back home to Bukuro after the day's business and schooling in Yariwondo village in neighbouring Benin Republic.
Three prominent people in the area ---- the paramount ruler of Gwanara district under which Bukuro falls, Alhaji Sabi Idris, the village head of Bukuro itself, Mallam Isa Aliyu and even the Education Secretary of Baruten Local Council, Umaru Zango corroboratively confirmed that most of the victims were indeed their subjects and pupils. At the root of this unfortunate incident is the callous neglect by a government to properly fund and equip primary education and provide other basic infrastructure and social amenities in its jurisdiction, a situation that invariably forced ambitious pupils to look elsewhere for succour.
While Emir Idris described the incident as the worst in the history of Gwanara district, he said the boat mishap "would have been averted if the Federal Government (as well as the Kwara State and Baruten Local Government) had provided Bukuro with a good road network and electricity to boost economic activities in the area, as this would have discouraged people from crossing over to Benin Republic to do business and school there". On his part, the village head of Bukuro, Aliyu was reported to have lamented that his village with a population of about 20, 000 could only boast of three teachers in its only primary school, saying the situation forced parents and guardians to enrol their children and wards in schools in neighbouring Benin Republic. Also, the Education Secretary of Baruten Council, Zango confirmed that about 55 school pupils were on board the ill-fated canoes. Zango was further quoted to have asked the Kwara State government to provide more teachers for the Bukuro Primary School to reduce the number of pupils in the village attending primary schools in Benin Republic.
To me, therefore, the off-handed denial by the Baruten Local Government Chairman, Alhaji Aliyu Muhammed that none of the victims of the boat mishap was an indigene of the council area is an after-thought, aimed probably at absolving the council he presides over of blame for non-performance in the area of primary education. For, even if we take the chairman for his words that not a single citizen of his council was among the unfortunate victims, wouldn't the mishap have been avoided if there is a functional primary school in the area to make it unnecessary for 55 pupils, even if they are children of non-indigenous settlers, to cross the border to school in Benin Republic? Or is the primary school in the area exclusively reserved for Baruten indigenes? Or why would people resident in a village be so enamoured with the luxury of enrolling their wards in another village's public primary school, not to talk of another country?
Quite sadly, the Nano River boat mishap has once again brought to the fore the need for our governments at all levels to pay more attention to rural development in all its ramifications. If all villages cannot have government secondary schools, it will not be demanding too much for any government that is worth its salt to provide well-staffed primary schools for all villages in its vicinity. There can be no justification for a village of 20, 000 people to be without a functional government primary school. The same goes for other basic social amenities that make life minimally comfortable for the people.
Although the developmental strides of Governor Bukola Saraki in Kwara State is highly commendable, it should be noted that most of the developmental projects we are talking about are presently concentrated in Ilorin, the state capital. But for goodness' sake, Ilorin does not and cannot make up Kwara State. It is only the state capital and the most populous settlement in the state. But that does not mean that other areas in the state do not exist or do not need social amenities like good roads, potable water, light, good schools and so on.
So, the government should spread amenities to the rural areas that make up almost 85 per cent of the entire state. Kwara is a typical rural state. The ruralites should also feel the impact of government and governance. They should not hear about government only during electioneering campaign periods when politicians of all hues would be jostling to outdo one another in the number of rural areas their campaign trains cover.
The Bukuro boat mishap, in which unfavourable conditions/lack of opportunities at home drove people to their untimely deaths abroad, is a sad reminder of what many greener-pasture seeking Nigerians face on their way to Europe, America and even North African countries. Scores of them die daily in the scorching desert heat of North Africa and on high seas in the bellies of stow-away ships while trying to sneak away to Europe and the Americas. This is aside the harder hurdle most of them have to scale when and if they manage to get to their destinations. Some of them end up in jails, some get killed while the "unlucky" ones are deported back to the country to face the harsh realities they were trying to escape from in the first place.
But our government can prevent this needless humiliation of her citizens by providing the basic necessities of life and ensuring their fair spread across all social strata and component communities.
Perhaps the government does not realise the havoc it is unwittingly wreaking on the territorial integrity of the nation by the callous neglect of border communities. This attitude of our government officials makes it easy for neighbouring countries to annex such Nigerian villages whenever they feel the urge. After all, they have all along been catering to the socio-economic needs of the Nigerians in such border villages, so what stops them from taking full possession of the communities and start exercising political powers over them? This is a great possibility and our governments must do something fast to prevent its materialisation. I will submit that because of their understandable ambivalent status, our government should treat Nigerian border communities as priority zones where tangible development projects should be located. This will definitely encourage the inhabitants of such areas to positively identify with the country and its aspirations and they will proudly proclaim their Nigerianness in case of any brush between our country and any of its neighbours.
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