Written by: Iruoghene Areh
Worldwide, Health and Education are very important pillars in the development of any society as they say ‘ health is wealth’ and ‘ education is power. In Nigeria today, the reverse is the case. Our leaders who are supposed to set paces for us to follow now sought for education and healthcare abroad. In 2018 in the midst of a recession, President Mohammadu Buhari traveled to United Kingdom for medical treatment and checkup twice or so in such a manner that I wonder that when will an Indian man or a Briton be referred to Nigeria for treatment the way we go there.
Hospitals are supposed to be the cleanest places on earth but in Nigeria you cannot spend the night in some government hospitals because of the large number of mosquitoes in the hospital premises. A case study is the General Hospital Ozoro in Isoko North Local Government area of Delta State. The hospital looks more of a farm. The only distinguishing factor of this hospital and a farm is the smell of drugs and a couple of sick beds. Even nurses advise patients to go to private hospitals in order to avoid mosquitoes but when you don’t have money what do you do, you have to endure.
Another challenge facing the health sector is the nonchalant attitude of government to the welfare of the health practitioners. Every day we hear news of strike action or warnings about future strike action by health practitioners because of their welfare has been neglected. Just imagine yourself handling the deadly case of coronavirus and other viruses and your hazard allowances are being owed. Same thing applies to the educational sector where in some parts of country teaching and learning takes place under the rain and under the sun because of lack of good buildings, proper funding and insufficient teaching personnel.
Today in Nigeria there are over 500,000 teachers nationwide but this figure is still not enough when compared to the population of more than 200 million people, that is just about 0.5% out of 100%. For this nation to move forward there are more than enough qualified teachers in the unemployment market that need to be brought into the field of employment for the rate of unemployment and crimes to be reduced.
Every day they make a hell of noise about reducing the number of out-of-school children when the issue of insufficient teachers still hangs in the scene. State like Kaduna State have continued to sack thousands of teachers despite public outcry
. How do you hope to tackle insecurity when you are sacking innocent people thereby pushing them into the world of unemployment. Also in the area of school buildings and infrastructure there is more work to be done than to be said.
Areh writes from Ozoro, Delta State.*
