Emmanuel Undie Speaks

Mr Emmanuel Undie Early this morning wrote his plan for education in cross river state, and these are his words.

FREE EDUCATION FROM PRIMARY SCHOOL THROUGH SECONDARY SCHOOL IN CROSS RIVER STATE.

The candidate of the Young Democratic Party in Cross River State has come down with a bang and a shocker to Cross Riverians with his proposed introduction of Free Primary and Secondary School education in Cross River State when elected as Cross River State Governor in 2019. We have been expecting a surprise!

This is a clear policy shift unlike any of his contenders. This is a shock in a State where it is generally acclaimed that we have zero allocation. It is an aggressive policy according to him, "...to address the crisis in our educational sector. You don't meet an emergency situation with bread and butter policies". Mr. Emmanuel Undie made it clear over the weekend while addressing an elated group of voters that Cross River State is ripped for a change. He affirmed his commitment to the Four major sectors of his policy focus: The education, Health, the Youth and "Real Industrialization" in his own words. "Government has got to do what government has got to do", he said. He reminded that the youth in any community is the future of that society. "Take the youth out of your policy focus and I'll quickly tell you, doom is all you are asking for". He highlighted the many faces of challenges that Cross River State is facing. From lack of productivity to poor performance in education; from poor business environment to devaluated cities, Mr. Undie pointed out the gross negligence of our youth as the culprit. "How can you tell me that you forget to include the youth in your policy plans and expect real productivity in the real sectors of our State? You have to be dreaming to think it is enough to give appointments to a million persons that will go down with your administration and expect that is employment creation. Our youths are sick! You pretend that there is health policy that we only see on the pages of social media. You pretend that there is health sector policy that we only see associated pictures of keke-napep littered all over the place. Show me a policy statement! I have always referred us back to what a good policy is: it is people-focused", Emmanuel barked.

He further highlighted..."education at that low cadre has to be free to ensure that no kid is left behind. Go to ur market squares. Go to our city streets and count the number of kids roaming those streets. If you are not scared to your bones, as a policy maker, then something is really wrong with the way you think. Let's move those kids, whoever they are, back to the classrooms and keep them there! Isn't it amazing that SUPEB would accuse applicants of not reading or writing well? Whose responsibility is it to educate people if not the government's? These are the people government churned out to us a few years back. Today, you cannot tell me the onus is on half-baked individuals to teach themselves and make themselves good enough to teach the next generation. Shame on us. Government has the sole responsibility to produce the kids that we all will be proud of. Failure today is endangering the generation of tomorrow. It is the failure of the past that endangered the current generation. But it is not too late today. This is because the generation before last into which some investment that yielded results were made are still alive to be used to cause this change.

"Let's face it, our systems are crashing down the drain. Some real stuff has got to be done today, not tomorrow. It will be late tomorrow because once we miss the opportunity to make use of the only remaining human resource with substance in our educational system to be used to pilot this shift, then, we might indeed need to import foreigners at a much higher cost, to teach our children tomorrow. Where in the world do governments import teachers? Ridiculous isn't it? How can we do that? Does an Indonesian or Chinese know our culture? Does a Malaysian understand my language? And do our kids understand Chinese? These are the implications of leaving these things unaddressed today by leaving the government in the hands of a characteristically empty bunch. We can see that the current administration in the State has failed to tactically think ahead. They feel we have nothing to offer anymore so they are going to import teachers and school administrators. How far can we go on this matter, folks?" He said.

Furthermore, Mr. Undie pointed out that the educational structures are falling. "These are the basic debts we owe these little ones. Do we expect them to feign for themselves? Did they ask us to give birth to them? Who cares if we have problems or zero allocations? We either stop having kids or if we must have them, then we must take care of them, no questions asked! It baffles me when it is our old men and women sitting over policy formulations that recommend not sending our kids to school. Get them to their schools of choice and let us see if they would run away from there.