In this interview Michael Ovienmhada, who is an author, poet, playwright, public affairs communicator, and now, aspiring for Governor of Edo State in 2024 on the platform of the New Nigeria People’s Party(NNPP), talks about his plans for the state.
How to make Edo greater
To begin with Edo is not great right now and I will tell you why. Considering our history from 13th to 15th century the white man came here they called us great. They called us a city. When they wrote letters back to their king ‘what we have seen here is a city.’ Benin is just one of two places in the world. Benin City because they saw advanced development – straight roads, grid roads, circular roads etc. There is no place you are in Benin that will take you more than 30minutes to get to the other place in Benin. All that was done by Oba Ewuare in the 14th century. The other kings followed. We used to be great. For us to be great we now need to do great things.
The great things Edo must do.
On the Education front no state in Nigeria comes close to Edo State in terms of our needs, our passion for Education. Let’s move that forward now. How do we do it? This is the age of technology. We must put a computer in the hands of every child in this state. If we can’t put a laptop physically in the hands of every child we need to give them access. In every village, we have about 1416 villages in this state. In every village we must have a computer lab. It can be situated in a church, a mosque or the local school, whatever works and we must have solar panels to run it. A laptop in the hands of Osaro in Iguobazuwa is as good as a laptop in the hands of Suzuki in Osaka, Japan. They become mates. By the time they’re adults they’re mates because they have had the same exposure with this equipment.
Nigeria has a population growth rate of 3 percent. If you look at Edo State then with a population of about 4.2million people about ten years ago(last population censor) at 3 percent growth rate it means that 150,000 new children are born every year. Where is the school that they’re going to attend? Where are the hospitals that will treat them when they’re born? We need to plan for growth. New schools must be built, new schools must be equipped in every village, village by village.
When I was in Annunciation College, Irrua, they had a programme for indigent students, children whose parents don’t have money. They went into the inner villages to bring out brilliant boys who will have an opportunity to go to school. These boys came to compete with us in class. Those of us whose parents could pay school fees. Those boys, I respect them from today until forever. They’ll never have had a chance if an opportunity was not presented to them. They came to school like they were going to war. These are people who made aggregate 10 and below. We must create opportunity for every child no matter their socio-economic status in this state by having well equipped schools and properly trained teachers.
Because of technology we can leverage good teachers. A good teacher who lives in Iguobazuwa should be able to teach a child in Ohordua without going to Ohordua physically. It is technology. So, why can’t we have facilitators in certain schools around the state? Just facilitators not teachers to just make sure there is order in class and have a big screen. The teacher is in Benin but is teaching students Ohordua, Uromi. We can level technology to change the direction of things that affect the future of our children.
One other thing about Education. To equip our children for the future and to add something to the curriculum. From Primary 3 every child must be equipped with a skill. There is farming, tailoring, carpentry etc. They must be exposed to a skill. The day that child is graduating from SSS 3 he already has a skill in which he has a diploma plus his WAEC Certificate. Now, he can make a decision. ‘Do I want to go to University or do I go to start a carpentry business? Ok, I want to go and start my carpentry business.’ Hold your certificate, go to a bank. The state has already put money in that bank. Collect your loan there of say N20 million. In five years that boy will be hiring 20 people. That’s your tax net. There are more people who can pay taxes. When we help people to start their businesses we are not throwing money away. We are creating a tax base by great and even wider base. The state is run on taxes not on allocation from the federal government.
We are running an unusual kind of system where we collect all revenue from one part of the country and divide to everybody else. It’s unjust and it brings laziness in the polity which is our problem now. We ran out country on agriculture before oil came. What happened to all of that? Has agriculture disappeared from the surface of the earth? That’s the curriculum change. We’re going to change the future of our children. We got to equip our children for the future. That’s Education and it is the easiest one to do.
When I was growing up there was a dispensary in my village, Ohordua. When you were sick your parents took you to the dispensary. Those were relics of what the colonial government had left behind to ensure that every village had primary healthcare. All those things have disappeared. Meanwhile, this is 2023. Every village must have at least three nurses working twelve hours shift or eight hours shift. When one nurse wants to go off there are two nurses on duty. Every village doesn’t need a doctor. You can have a group of doctors assigned to every local government area.
For example, there are five local government areas in Esan land. You don’t need more than three doctors who are given a RV as an equipped vehicle like a moving house with facilities for surgery. There job will be to go round all these villages and take care of any serious problem. The nurse has already taken care of the minor things. These people need surgery. ‘Doctor is coming on Thursday to come take care of you.’ As the doctor is going he is going with food also. There is a trailer of food coming with him because much of the problems that children suffer in the village is malnutrition. Beyond treating the families you look at their social condition. Make some food for them. They’ll not be sick the next time you come because the problem has been solved at the root.
In the late 50s epidemiologists found that children were suffering from scurvy. How do we tackle this? It was a deficiency of vitamins. The US government now came up with a policy. There is something that we use everyday. Salt for example. We use it everyday. Let’s put iodine in salt so that as you use it for your normal daily stuff you are injesting iodine and you are solving a problem. We drink garri(Cassava flakes) here everyday. We eat eba everyday. I will do that with garri in Edo State. I will put some vitamins in our garri to solve the problem of malnutrition. Garri is a staple here. Whether it is vitamin C or vitamin D whatever we see as a problem we infuse it into foods that are staple to us.
You have a population that can compete. When our people go to compete with other countries you will see their opponents in better shape. Have you seen Basketballers or American footballers playing? When my son was growing up this guy could take a gallon of milk a day. We buy milk for the family for the week and the boy consumes it in one day. You can’t tell a child not to take milk when he wants to. You go and buy more. Health has to come from the lowest level. When you have a healthy population they can work and be productive.
One of the things that kills women in Edo State and most part of Nigeria is breast cancer. We can solve their problem easily. Just have mamograph machines in every major market in every local government area. Every woman goes to the market. Solve the problem where you can find them. How many woman will say ‘let me go to the hospital.’ They’re afraid of hospital because they don’t have money to go there. As we are here if I am sick now nobody there is nobody I can call; no ambulance will show up if I call now. There is no emergency system. We should be able to have that. We have all this bank codes. Why can’t we have a code for health. When you call that number an ambulance that’s situated in Ring Road would come and get you, take you to hospital and they must treat you by law. There must be a law for them to treat you first of all before asking for any money. That’s a law that we must make. It is a law whose time has come.
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