The foremost pan-Rivers media organisation, the Inter-ethnic Network for Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, INCRA, unequivocally condemns the two billion naira budgetary allocation for private universities, as proposed by Governor Nyesom Wike, in the Rivers State 2018 Appropriation Bill which was presented to the Rivers State House of Assembly, on the 11th of January, 2018.
To us at INCRA, we find the strange decision by Governor Wike to trivially waste the scarce resources of Rivers people on private universities, when state-owned tertiary institutions are literally begging for urgent attention, as not only highly insensitive, but also terribly wicked.
At a time when Rivers State University (former Rivers State University of Science and Technology), is owing adjunct lecturers millions in salaries and allowances for over three years now, thereby leading to gross inadequacy of academic manpower in the institution, it beggars rational thinking, why the governor would now want to throw around like confetti, the collective patrimony of Rivers people.
From the foregone, we are compelled to believe that there is a lot more to the proposed two billion naira budgetry allocation to private universities than meets the eye. Otherwise, how can one explain the fact that apart from Rhema University in Oyigbo LGA, the other institutions that have any link with Rivers State are Maddona University, which only has a statelite campus situated at Elele, and Pamo University of Medical Sciences, which was just recently licensed by the Nigerian Universities Commision, NUC.
Except Governor Wike is telling us that the money in question will be doled out in whole to fund academic programmes in Rhema University, or that the statelite campus of Madonna University will gulp the entire intervention fund, otherwise, in our view, the only plausible explanation is that the fund is solely meant for the establishment of Pamo University of Medical Sciences, from scratch. Thus, the question that arises is whether it is legally and morally justifiable for the governor to embark on such unguided spending spree?
Finally, INCRA is using this medium to advise Governor Wike to focus more on providing quality governance to Rivers people by judiciously applying scarce resources of the state to sectors that directly affect the lives of the impoverished masses. We strongly believe that misappropriating two billion naira in the guise of funding private universities, especially at a time when state-owned tertiary institutions are in a sorry state, is nothing but crass misgovernace.
INCRA,
Ubima, Rivers State.
January 26, 2018.
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