Enugu Community Cursed By White Man, Where Pupils Study On The Floor

odogwuemekaodogwu.com brings you this amazing report by Sam Otti and Job  Osazuwa  on the suffering of the Enugu state pupils as pictured above while Governor Sullivan Chime was busy trying to remove his deputy.

Did the white man truly curse Ugbene Ajima community, a sleepy town in Igbo-Ano Local Development Authority of Enugu State? This is a mystery that has defied the logic of people living in the area. 

The ugly face of western education, as seen in their rural schools, heightens the people’s fears that they might be victims of the white man’s curse. When our reporter visited the area recently, scenes of primary school pupils sitting on dusty concrete floors, often without a teacher, coupled with dilapidated and rickety classrooms, were commonplace. Inside these neglected schools, one sees the face of decay in the leaking corrugated iron sheets, broken chairs and disused desks littering the poorly ventilated classrooms.

Further investigation by our reporter revealed that Igbo-Ano Local Development Authority was carved out of the old Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area by the past administration of Governor Chimaraoke Nnamani to bring development to the grassroots. Sadly, the reverse is now the case, as the locality has become a case study in neglect. Public schools and other social amenities are in their worst state or totally non-existent in the area.

A retired teacher in the area, Richard Eze, told this reporter that one of the colonial masters reportedly cursed the community for being hostile when he wanted to introduce cassava plant in the area. He said the community prized the cultivation of yam more than any other crop, so it was not surprising that a certain white man, who brought cassava plant to the villagers, was booed in the public square when he tried to persuade them to plant it in their farmland.

According to Eze, the white man left in anger and reportedly told the villagers that nothing good will come their way.

The evidence that the white man’s curse has relegated Ugbene people to the back stage could be seen in the 13- kilometer road from St Cyprian’s Special Science School, Nsukka to the community. It is like a winding bush path, marred by deep gulley and chains of bumps.   For motorists in the area, going to Ugbene community from Nsukka town is a journey to hell.

Our reporter, who went to the community on a motor-cycle, was told by the villagers that several appeals to the government to construct the feeder road met a brick wall. The disappointed villagers, mostly old men and youths, resort to manual labour, clearing the failed spots or creating new diversions with their hoes, matchetes and shovels, or risk being cut off from the rest of the world.

One of the villagers, Nwakaozor Eke said there had been no power supply in the community in the past 10 months. Even in this communication age, a large portion of the community has no access to telecommunication network. Aside MTN that had a solar -powered mast at Akutala, other parts of the community, Ajona, Ajona Ugwu, Akibite, Oba, Amachukwu, Anioma, Ashenyi, among others, have no access to network.

Fears that the white man’s spell has closed the door of civilization against the community could also be seen in decrepit public schools in the area.  A quick glance at the public schools in the area reveals the sad fate of a community groping in the dark age.

For instance, at Model Primary School, Ugbene Akutala, about 120 pupils have few wooden desks scattered in various classes. With only eight teachers, learning in the area is a fall back to the stone- age where children sit on bare floor and read alphabets written on the peeling, darkened school wall.

At Central School, Ugbene, 196 pupils share only 21 wooden benches. Other pupils bring low wooden stools from their homes or sit on the floor during lessons. With only nine teachers in the populated school, going round the classes daily becomes a heavy cross for the teaching staff.

One of the teachers, who pleaded not to be named because they were barred from speaking to journalists, said chalks and pupils’ books were often in short supply. According to her, teachers often buy chalk or ask pupils to bring local chalk, popularly called ‘Nzu’ from their homes to be used in school.

At the Union Primary School, few wooden benches were available for the 196 pupils, while only nine teachers manage the various arms.

The situation was not better at the Oriental Primary School, Ugbene Akibite. With eight teachers and a population of 180 pupils, the dilapidated school building begs for urgent repair. In most classes, children huddle together, six or seven of them on a long bench meant for four, making their days in school a boring exercise.

At Hilltop Primary School, sited on the hill side of the community, neglect kissed decay. With a population of 160 pupils, the school has only two buildings without doors or windows. There is no toilet facility for both the teachers and their pupils.

At Community Primary School, Akutala, most of the 160 pupils have no seat at all. Pupils sat on the floor in most of the classes when our reporter visited the area. Also, the school lacks basic teaching facilities like chalk, visual aids, teachers’ table, chair and so on.

In most of these schools, toilet facilities, portable water, computers and teaching aids are like diamond in the sky.   Instead, portions of the school wall, darkened with charcoal, served as the black board. Clusters of children spend their days on the dingy floor, reciting the barely visible words written on these blackboard by the teachers.

An aggrieved teacher, who was moved to tears as he spoke with our reporter, said the neglect of rural schools by successive administrations in the area has turned learning to a nightmare. She told our reporter that repeated appeals made to the local education authority and the state government for more wooden benches fell on deaf ears.  According to him, some of the younger pupils, whose parents were unable to buy the plastic seats, or those too young to carry them to school, have no option than to sit on the floor.

In all the schools visited, some of the classes have no teachers at all, a situation that imposes additional workload on the already over-stretched staff. Despite the increasing enrolment in the area, none of the school has a perimeter fence. Rather, they are surrounded by local fence made with thatched leaves, bushes or tall trees. In one of the schools, bamboo sticks stacked in the ceiling of the headmaster’s office serves as the school library.

“We have cried for so long, but nobody has come to our aid. There is no water here, so our source of water is the village stream. We ask the children to bring gallons of water from their homes for use in the school,” one of the teachers told our reporter in confidence.

Teachers in these schools have sad classroom experiences. A female teacher confessed that she shares the wooden bench in her class with five pupils. She counted herself lucky when compared with some of her colleagues teaching in other classes where there are no seat at all.

When she took our reporter to one of her colleagues, the teacher looked up in disappointment and said,  ‘Each time I come to school, I stand up in the class from morning till break period; that’s when I will go out and look for somewhere to sit down. Why is the government treating public schools like this?”

At Community Secondary School, Ugbene and Community Secondary School, Abbi-Ugbene, dejected students and their teachers told our reporter that government is dead in the area. One of the pupils, Ejike Ajogwu, said he was disappointed with the present government for failing to provide the essential facilities in rural schools.

The poor state of these rural schools is an indictment of the Enugu State Governor, Sullivan Chime, who had promised to boost the knowledge economy of the state. During his inauguration for a second term on May 29, 2011, he said, “We cannot secure the future of our state if we do not equip our children to compete in the knowledge economy by providing them with the best education that our resources can afford.”

Chime demonstrated this in 2014, when the education sector got the second highest allocation in the state, totalling N5.78billion. This was a remarkable improvement to the N4.47billion allocated to the sector in 2013, N4.939b in 2012 and N3.69b in 2011.

Sadly, the disbursement of these billions of Naira has not changed the pathetic state of most public schools in rural communities of the state. Indication that public schools in the area were in distressed state emerged in the 2009 Annual School Census Report. The report revealed that there were no adequate classrooms, while 40 per cent of the existing ones needed major repairs. Also, the report disclosed that about 80 per cent of these schools have insufficient furniture, while 66 per cent didn’t have good chalk board. The report also stated that 72 per cent of the schools had no source of portable water, coupled with lack of toilet facilities with an alrrming pupil/toilet ratio of 1.278.

Despite these challenges, statistics revealed that between 2012 and 2013, school enrolment rate in the pre-primary and post primary schools rose from 65 per cent to 85 per cent in the state. Most of these high enrolment occured in public schools, where learning facilities are in utter disrepair.

Our reporter gathered that these challenges  have continued to reflect in the academic performance of students in the state. For instance, an estimated 31.16 per cent of students had a minimum of five credits, including English Language and Mathematics in 2012 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). Although there was a slight improvement to 50.10 per cent in 2013,  this year’s result has pushed the state further down the ladder.

A banker, Ikechukwu Ezea, who passed out of the primary school in Ugbene in 1983, expressed shock with the dilapidated state of these community schools.

His words: “The last time I visited them, the top class, who are mostly pupils of reasonable age, were seated on a wooden plank. I bled in my heart. I asked one of the teachers whether Education Officers from the local government ever visit the school and she said yes.”

Ezea pleaded with the government to address the poor state of facilities in these rural schools and save pupils and their tears further agony.

His words: “This was the school that had the top pupils in the 1980s when 36 was the highest aggregate in Common Entrance and Distinction rare in First School Leaving Certificate. I dare to ask, can we produce the best Nigeria is looking for from this background?”

When our reporter took the anguish of these rural pupils in Ugbene community to the lawmaker representing Enugu North Constituency in the House of Representative, Princess Stella Ngwu, she promised to address the situation.

Our reporter wrote on her Facebook wall as follows: “Please, would you mind visiting public schools in Ugbene Ajima and other communities in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area. From Abbi to Nimbo, Nkpologu to Adani, pupils sitting on bare floor and their wearied teachers lacking cheap facilities like chalk have strong reason to believe that government is dead. Perhaps, you can make them think differently.”

The lawmaker promptly replied to the post: “My second son stumbled on that picture on the internet and sent me the link weeks ago. I have already sent someone to do a cost analysis. These are the kind of pictures the youths need to be re-tweeting or posting on social networks and tagging those in government and not half naked pictures.”

Like a politician’s promise, Ngwu is yet to bring respite to these neglected schools, despite working as a school teacher for 10 years, secondary school principal for 17 years and Chairman of the State School Board for two years, before venturing into politics.

Months after she promised to wipe the tears of these pupils, nothing has changed. Rather, the poor pupils wrote their last term exams on the floor. Unless urgent steps are taken, the pupils would surely return to the dusty concrete floor when school reopens for a new session in September.

Efforts by our reporter to get the reaction of the Enugu State Commissioner for Education, Prof Chris Okolo, were unsuccessful. He promised to get back to the reporter but never did, even when our reporter sent him reminder text messages and voice call.

However, the Secretary of the Local Education Authority in the area, Chief Thaddeus Ogbobe, who once served as the Chairman, Caretaker Committee of the local government, said the present Uzo-Uwani Local Chairman, Hon. Cornell Onwubuya, is worried about the situation and has promised to address the problem of desks in rural schools.

“The present Chairman asked me recently to bring the specification of the desks to him, which I did. He discussed with me on providing more seats and he is serious about it. He is working towards that,” he said.

Ogbobe said the challenge of infrastructure, especially lack of seats, was not peculiar to the schools in Uzo-Uwani and Igbo Ano areas alone, but to other public schools in the state. He said more primary schools were created in Ugbene community to increase children’s access to formal education. According to him, the creation of new primary schools out of the existing ones stretched the existing facilities, which he promised would be addressed in due course by the government.

He said some schools got chairs through self- help project from SUBEB, which involved representatives of the community monitoring the project. According to him, some benefitting schools had enough seats that they gave out others to others.

A retired teacher in the community, Ugwuoke Obochija, told our reporter that Christians in the area are not taking the battle lightly, as they pray fervently for the breaking of any yoke imposed on the community.  He said retired and serving teachers are praying for a messiah, a responsible leader, who would accord priority attention to the education sector, as the bedrock of development.

As 2015 general elections draw near, Obochija said the poor villagers are waiting for an anointed leader, who would raise their dead schools to life and break the generational curse of  retrogression imposed on the community.

The Sun newspaper Special report