by Abraham Ogbodo
Last week, I presented the position of transport minister, Rotimi Amaechi, on the Nigeria Maritime University in Okerenkoko, Delta State and the counter position by Chief E.K. Clark. Amaechi had said the university should be discontinued, because more than a year after it had been purportedly established and approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and the National Universities Commission (NUC) for operation, the university had not unfolded beyond a mere feasibility report. Chief Clark simply went on location and provided statistics to discharge the minister’s claim.
I am relieved that nothing more has been said about the scrapping of the institution by Amaechi. I can’t say exactly why he is not talking again or what is on his mind. Whatever the situation, Amaechi’s sudden taciturnity on the matter of the maritime university is a very welcome development. For now, Amaechi is the most noticeable politician from the Niger Delta playing the game at the national level.
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On that note alone, I will appeal to all aggrieved persons and quarters to choose a weapon other than gun, cutlass, bow and arrow or anything lethal in dealing with Amaechi. In fact, dialogue should remain the only weapon. Agreed, Amaechi is now a national leader of the South-south but that has not made him to become as wise as Solomon. A wise man does not mortgage his entire heritage to punish one recalcitrant son, just as a king does not destroy his crown in a moment of anger.
And so, it should be taken that Amaechi, who is only 51 years old, is still learning the vital secrets of life. His posturing notwithstanding, he is still a son and not a father of the Niger Delta. In fact, in that sense, nobody, including Chief E.K Clark, Dr. Ogbemudia, General David Ejoor, King Diete Spiff is older than the region. Everybody is a son, which means just anybody can be called to order by a collective higher authority. I am suggesting therefore that instead of calling for his head, Amaechi should be invited, preferably to his village, Ubima in Ikwerre Local Council of Rivers State, and properly counseled on how to perform a national assignment in Nigeria.
The counselors should brief him on the many advantages that a university brings to an area. There should be one or two persons old enough to tell Amaechi that if Diete Spiff, as military governor of old Rivers State, had not worked had to bring a university to Choba near Ubima in 1975, which is today erroneously described as University of Port Harcourt, instead of University of Choba, he, Amaechi and many other people, would not have, perhaps, had the advantage of a university education.
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Apart from the University of Choba (I want to stay with the proper description for this purpose), there is also the state university called Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST), which has so beautifully complemented the one in Choba to rewrite the sociology of old Rivers State and all its catchment areas. Today, there is hardly any key player in the politics and even the economy of Rivers and Bayelsa States within the age bracket of Amaechi who did not pass through either of these institutions. The list starts with the former President, Goodluck Jonathan, who had all his degrees in Choba. Timipre Sylva, the failed APC’s candidate in the Bayelsa State governorship election, was in Choba too.
The state university has even done much more. Timi Alaibe was there; Dakuku Peterside was there; the late Oronto Douglas was there; Seriake Dickson was there; Nyesom Wike was there; former deputy speaker of the House of Reps, Austin Okpara was there; minister of state for environment, Heineken Lokpobiri was there; Chibuzor Ugwoha, former managing director of Niger Delta Development Company (NDDC) was there and the man who took over from him, Dr. Chris Oboh was there too. You just mention the big names today from that axis and they will be traced to RSUST mainly, and then Choba.
An alumnus of RSUST and a friend who is in the commanding heights of an international oil company confessed that “the story would have been so much different for many of us if RSUST had not remained, so to say, within a walking distance from our homes.” Seriously, what would have been the story today if Chief Melford Okilo had scrapped the former Rivers State College of Science and Technology like Amaechi has done to the Maritime University? Instead, Okilo, who was the Second Republic governor of old Rivers State, had the foresight to upgrade the college, which was established in 1972, to a full-fledged university in 1980. It became the first university of technology in Nigeria and the first state owned university in the Niger Delta region.
The economy that builds around a university is even a much bigger deal. It comes with its own real estate development and ancillary economic activities. Only last month, a ward was set for the Delta State Polytechnic in Otefe, which is a tiny settlement in Oghara clan. He returned with a bill of N100,000 for only accommodation, the type they call self-contained room or bed-seater. I thought he was up to some game because Otefe is not any bigger than my own village where rent payment for whatever quality of accommodation is not yet an entrenched economic concept talk less of paying that whooping sum for a room in one year. When I enquired, I was told that the establishment of the polytechnic by the James Ibori administration has changed things and the once sleepy village has become a destination for knowledge and fortune hunters with all the attendant benefits of a functional multiplier.
We are talking of a region with dysfunctional sociology, because things, including good schools that should make life beautiful, are absent. And here too is a so-called regional leader mounting the roof top to proclaim the obliteration of the little on ground with gusto. This is why I would suggest leadership training for the South-south leaders. Leadership is not a popularity contest neither is it an attention seeking venture. It is an envisioning process that brings tomorrow’s picture to bear on the events of today.
If the issue in the region is youth restiveness occasioned by lack of empowerment initiatives, how does the cancellation of a capacity-building university of maritime help to address that issue? It can be argued, that if universities had been located in the wetland of Ijaw and elsewhere in the mangrove swamp the same time the University of Lagos, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Obafemi Awolowo University Ife and even the second generation universities of Jos, Benin, Calabar and so on were being built, the mass of youths that derailed into militancy in the last two decades would have been arrested by education.
Fortunately, a pilot scheme is now on with the Federal University in Otuoke, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island both in Bayelsa State and the Federal Maritime University in Okerenkoko, Delta State, which Amaechi is threatening to upturn. This should be allowed to work. In fact, if government can step up this level of direct intervention instead of creating overlapping development agencies to enrich some well connected persons, what is proving so intractable to crack, shall resolve on its own. What Chief Awolowo did with free education in the 50s added up later in life to put the Southwest clearly ahead of other regions in almost all departments of national life.
Instead of seeking to scrap an already established university, Amaechi should drive the East-West coastal rail line to decisively open up the mangrove jungles of the Niger Delta to the rest of the world. He has four years, of which one year is almost gone, to show depth and chart a good course. He may choose to use his entire time to grandstand and seek attention. In the end, he shall stand alone in judgment. A word, they say, is enough for the wise!
Abraham Ogbodo is a columnist with The Guardian, where this article was first published.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
