The last time I checked my proverbial dictionary on what the word ‘cash-cow’ meant,it expressly meant-an individual,group or institution that has been unfettedly sapped,used and ‘raped’ financially by some megalomaniacs of sorts.
For AAU,the horizon appears grim,severely shrunk educationally by the sustained stab in her standard,a stifling environment that constrict and shrink in its academic,dormitory and extramural infrastructure,pervading gloom occasioned by high unemployment rate. To say the educational standard in Edo State under the APC has fallen into terrible times would pass as an understatement. That much is replicated in the general high fraud in subventions and projects executions accruing to the university.For a government to tell us barefaced lies that about 3 billion was expended just for the installation of a Pro-Chancellor is alarming!School fees were skyrocketed from #23,000 to #160,000 without any subsisting improve in the standard.
Adams Oshiomhole diverts 1billion in the guise of monthly subvention to AAU monthly and only a paltry 200 million is paid to the school management.
Under the APC government, the lives of students have become far more less than a shekel.The government seems more busy with felonious and ‘broad-day’ looting and diversions to the IYAMHO KINGDOM.
In November 2015 during the installation of the new Pro-chancellor of AAU which coincided with the commissioning of some ‘kangaroo’ projects, Gov Adams Oshiomhole insulted the psyche of students when he said ‘…….your request for a 200-room hostel is not a luxury and we will look for the money….’.
Less than a year later,we all watched the commissioning of a luxurious 168-room dormitory at IYAMHO at the whooping cost of 11 million a room amounting to 1.88 billion,What a surprise!!;
Secondly,in the Givernors character of seamless licentiousness,he told the world over 3 billion naira was expended just for the installation event of a Pro-Chancellor of Ambrose Alli University.What has the educational standard been boosted from that singular event?
Thirdly,at the same event,the Governor admonished students to ‘……revisit the basic curriculum for a balanced education…’.
8 months down the line, over 10 departments have been reaccredited by the Nigeria Universities Commission (NUC)-It read- DEACCREDITATION OF DEPARTMENTS IN AAU AS PUBLISHED IN PREMIUM TIMES (REF:DEACCREDITED COURSES IN 37 OUT OF 143 UNIVERSITIES IN NIGERIA) where AAU lost accreditation of 7-Professional departments-Materials and Production Engineering,Architecture,Building,Biochemistry,Botany,Microbiology, Political Science) owing to the refusal and laxity of the Edo state government to: enhance the quality of tertiary education in AAU and Edo-State in general, enhance and upgrade the hostel and infrastructural condition in AAU.
Vice-Chancellors who refused to do his bidding are thrown out and those who know nothing near governance are foisted on the management so they can join him to loot the treasury.
Ambrose Alli University is now in the grip of fear.Adams Oshiomhole recently commissioned a MOOT COURT in the faculty of Law meanwhile the whole Faculty is on the verge of been ravaged and swallowed by a prowling gully.Female hostels and the hostel community in general have regressed to a Hobessian state under the regular visits of night marauders,thieves and robbers.The government seriously needs to revisit the security apparatchik and devise methods of eradicating all those criminal activities.
In 2013, we lost 5 brilliant and ebullient students in the IYAYI HOSTEL WELL MISHAP where two wells caved in at the same time and the students swam till they passed out…meanwhile the IYAMHO UNIVERSITY has a toilet jaccuzzi imported from China!
Lastly, we say it again and again at rooftop height-That Ambrose Alli University had its best years under the PDP administration-From the advent of bursary,conducive and spacious lecture theatres and halls,regular subvention, good road network within the campus community, effective healtcare/renewal of ambulances,the worldclass halls of residence and mos befitting lecture theatre were under the past administration including the accreditation of over 150 department and courses of study.
The basic objective of higher and professional education is to improve the capability of young people to identify,formulate and handle scientifically complex problems as well as to critically evaluate information and formulate possible solutions.
No Child will be denied access to education.
THE FUTURE IS NOW… TAKE IT!!!
ORIAIFO ODION KESSINGTON writes from Irrua, Edo State.
