Why I Don't Like Boys-Only Schools

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I attended two public elementary schools in Jos South. Most elementary schools are mixed, with boys and girls learning next to each other. But when I was about to finish elementary, I started learning that some schools are exclusively unisex. There are examples of such schools in Plateau State. There is the Boys High School Gindiri, Science School Kuru, College of Mary Immaculate Zawan, St. Joseph College Vom and hosts of others. 

Many people assume that Government Technical College Bukuru is a unisex school. It is not. The fact that it is a technical college makes it repellent to girls, but there have always been a handful of girls. The current Principal of the school, Mercy Patu Wambutda, is female, the first woman to hold that position. She is an alumnus of the school and was also the first Head Girl of the school. 

Government Technical College Bukuru is a school that admits students who have already finished the foundation level of secondary in other schools. It used to be the first two years of secondary, but with the 6-3-3-4 system, you have to finish the first three years of secondary to meet the criterion to attend the school, also referred to as Butechs.  

Inter-school sports competitions or Man-o-War jamborees often brought schools together.  It was where I learned the character of Butechs as a school that breeds hard nuts. They would splurge to get attention. For instance, they could go to the extent of eating bread with the polythene plastic covering or pushing three balls of chin chin burns at the same them, making their eyes bulge as if wanting to pop out of their sockets  –they just loved creating a scene. 

The hard-nut character of Butechs’ students did work on our psychologies, making us believe that the school is a-most-attend. So, I wrote the entrance exams to get to Butechs, but I wasn't admitted due to my weak mathematics foundation at the time –it became a silver lining. 

Science School Kuru is one of the most iconic schools Plateau State has ever known. It became very glaring to me when I was a student at the University of Jos –the school would boast of scores of students at the university when other schools had but a handful.

The entry criterion of Science School Kuru is similar to that of Butechs –you must complete basic education. So, while in class two of my secondary, I reluctantly wrote the entrance examination, reluctant because I never liked an exclusive boys' school –it seemed like a prison to me. So, when the results came out, I pretended I hadn’t heard about it. People who saw my name on the shortlist still came to inform me, but I jettisoned the idea of going. When I gave my reasons for refusing to go to Science School Kuru to an old student, he confirmed to me that it was true that they often had to violate the rules by jumping over the fence just to see girls in the host community. 

What is the aim of schools and education? To sum it up, schools are intended to fade the darkness in our minds and provide a good life, position, power and sometimes wealth. Science School Kuru stands along the way to Abuja, the work base of many educated and successful Nigerians. On their way to or from Abuja, some of them will disembark to meet with the local women who sell by the roadside. They give financial donations to the women, admitting the gifts are reparations for the damages done to tubers and livestock, years back. Isn’t this a confirmation that boys' schools are prisons of sorts?

Where I work, there are a couple of men from some of these schools. There are times they talk longingly about their antics during the school days. Some students were daring enough to kill whole goats and take them to the mountains where the goats are grilled and eaten. They would talk about how they often defied the rules to hide cooking stoves in dormitories so that inspectors wouldn't find them. They would talk about how “inmates” would fight ferociously over the illegal meals. When they talk about these things, however, I begin to feel like it may be a prison, but it is an experience that is worth having. I think that I gained and missed something at the same time.  

 

Abroad by Any Means is Edo culture

The front page news of Vanguard Newspaper of today, May 12th refers to a story of Gaius Obaseki, Edo State Governor, talking about how he is educating Edo youths to understand, on the whole, the idea of abroad. According to Abaseki, there were 30, 000 Edo youths in Libya alone, when he became the Governor of Edo State. 

I wasn’t surprised there were this much of Edo youths in Libya alone. The love of travelling abroad is a culture around that region of Nigeria and goes more than fifty years back. As far back as then, a lot of other people have not taken notice because it hasn’t become an issue to the foreign destinations of desperate travellers. 

As a member of the National Youth Service Corps, I served in Edo State, staying in the St. Saviour area of Benin City. That was as far back as 1993. It was a time when commercial buses carried huge iron drums in the back, rather than passengers’ baggage. The drums housed huge speakers from where the sounds of Shaka Demus/Pliers, Mad Cobra and Shaba Ranks rose. It was a time when women wore long skirts with slashes that began from the helm right up to the thigh; you would think they were sabotaged with Gillette razor blades. That crazy skirt was referred to as “Shaba,” after Shaba Ranks who happened to be the king of Dancehall at the time. Certainly, the girls who wore those skirts are now grandmothers and are now looking back at what time has done to their pride. 

The Liberian war was ongoing at the time. Liberians were accepted as refugees in many parts of the Western world. All that was required of them was to present a Liberian passport. I was at a barbing saloon at the last bus stop in Inhiwhinwhi area when a guy approached me with a fake Liberian passport, pitching to get me to buy it. He requested an amount with a five as the starting digit. I can’t recall if it was five or fifty thousand. But I came from Jos and we don’t have that huge adventurous culture on the Plateau. In my typical Plateau mindset, I just looked forward to getting a job with Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, where I served or getting back to Jos and seeing what Heaven brings.  

Four years later, I found myself in Port Harcourt, Rivers, hustling. I run into a guy from Agbo, Delta State –they are all related, you know.  He studied Mechanical Engineering and had two options in life: either he find a job with an oil company or conserve enough money from the petty jobs and find his way abroad. He was always talking about the adventurous journeys, saying, “Where I come from, they don’t care about your graduate shit. What they want to see is how much you have.” He eventually left to travel abroad and I never heard from him anymore, despite searching all social media. I dread the idea of my friend ending up in a Moroccan pit of hell.

While still in Port Harcourt, there was this lady from Edo. She was an English teacher in one of the schools in Port Harcourt. Her ambition was to travel to the Netherlands. I had feelings for the dark slim and brilliant Edo woman. She knew it but I didn’t have what she wanted.  One day, I heard the shocking news that she was in Holland, already.  She was civil enough to avoid the idea of travelling through the desert with all manner of companions –desert storms, aridity, the ignorant, the young and old, the clean and the clumsy, uncertainty... She just worked to save enough money to travel via a safe, legitimate option. Her case is one of a known, documented success. 

Travelling by any means necessary has moved from what it is to trafficking kids that are, at times, willingly offered by their parents. The reasoning is that “Well since I am not young enough to go through the hassle, my kids can go, get the money and send it back.” 

Obviously, economics is at the root of the epidemic. It is the reason why it will spread and it has, indeed, spread. The Edos were just the first to see and understand it from a distance.

While the war in Libya got so messy everything became chaotic, warranting some Libyans to begin taking black Africans as slaves, I watched footage on YouTube, beholding the ignorance some victims played out and I wondered how someone with such profound ignorance would navigate the complex societies of the west, their ultimate destination. The depth of ignorance was such that you can’t help but ask yourself the question: what is she going there to do?

The profundity of ignorance can best be addressed through education and, hence, Gaius Obaseki hits the nail on the head. But education will do little to someone whose psychology is hardcore and rooted, since it is going to rest largely on reorientation –poverty and hardship have already given their orientation. It is the reason why basic education of the right quality is what is needed, not only in Edo state but across the length and breadth of the Nigerian space. 

Stanley Meyer, Nigeria and Fuel Scarcity

Fuel Queues in Nigeria. Credit: businessday.ng.

As of today, May 5th, it is getting to a couple of weeks since Nigerians commenced another episode of petrol fuel scarcity. Considering that Nigeria is an oil-producing nation, the situation triggers heartbreak, gloom, distrust and despondency.

It is a bizarre situation; people as high as university dons and directors in all tiers of the Nigerian Civil Service have resorted to commuting via commercial tricycles since they can't afford to power their private vehicles at the current fuel cost of about N1000/litre of fuel. We have suddenly found ourselves in a situation where the country belongs to a handful of politicians and highly successful businessmen and women.

As far as Nigerians are concerned, those who viewed Nigeria's oil as a curse are getting vindicated. Looking at the situation broadly, the global oil industry has given us a huge reason to view oil as coming with some level of course, albeit a minuscule. Some people will argue that the global curse is huge. Fossil fuel has brought staggering progress to humanity, but when the potentially apocalyptic dimension of its downside is viewed, it is a curse of sorts. For a myriad of reasons, people in different places are desperately praying for an option for fossil-driven engines.

This brings us to the story of Stanley Meyer, a guy from the US state of Ohio, who is said to have invented a hydrogen-driven car. Meyer's technology involved the process of electrolysis that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is combusted to power the engine, while the oxygen and other residues are propelled through the exhaust, enriching the atmosphere with more oxygen. The invention was meant to power a dune buggy capable of driving for 180km on four litres of water. Many folks must have said, "Who cares about the quantity of water? If it meant driving that far with 100 litres of water, all it would have required was to find the nearest river, well or water pump and just refill."

Meyer was said to have died in 1998, at a restaurant where a waiter served a purportedly poisoned drink. In the conversation that ensued, there were accusing fingers in the direction of the oil industry, the only institution that would have suffered if his invention were to fully come to reality.

There is that saying that "the triumph of evil over good is only fleeting." The doom the oil industry was trying to avoid if Meyer's invention were to come to full application is sure to come. The whole issue is something bigger than Meyer; it is about the whole of mankind. For the love of money and power, we cannot let humanity perish. Fossil fuel is getting closer and closer towards actualizing its target extinguishing the whole of mankind. Every day, we see events pointing in that direction. Recently, we saw it in the United Arab Emirates and Kenya, through floods of the magnitude that convinces the strongest sceptics of the veracity of the global environmental crisis.

In Nigeria, millions are praying frantically for the coming of the electric car. In the ignorance of many, their prayers aren't motivated by the day of doom that the use of fossil fuel would bring, should we lose the fight, but by the excruciating hardship, the exorbitant cost of petroleum products has brought.

We understand that Stephen, Stanley's brother, has moved his late brother's invention to Canada for safekeeping. Eventually, even the killers of his brother would beg this invention to be revisited. 

The Sad Power Verdict of Adelabu

Adebayo Adelabu. Source: Theindependent.ng

Recently, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu warned that if the recent increases in electric power tariff are not accepted by Nigerians, there will be a total blackout within the next three months in Nigeria. We thought that Adelabu would be advocating for the ordinary Nigerian, considering that he is talking on an issue that pitches ordinary Nigerians against a profit-driven institution. 

If one has been watching events in the power sector, one would have no option but to doubt if that warning is hinged on any sincerity. The history of electric power reforms in Nigeria is replete with tariff increases and lies since there aren’t corresponding improvements in the power supply. This, largely, has been the narrative. 

Let us look at cases of insincerity that we have witnessed along the way since the power reform got underway. There is the issue of metering. It was pronounced, from the onset, that meters would be free. The issue continued lingering such that those who eventually got the meters had to make one form of payment or the other. 

But there is also the preposterous issue of estimated metering. The estimations kept rising steadily and it reached a situation where some consumers were paying as much as N17, 000 month. So, if a country pays a minimum wage of N17,000.00 –as it was then – you know that something was awry. While some consumers were waiting for their meters, the story changed –you have to pay as much as N80,000 to get a meter currently. What happened to consumers who had their connections on condition that their meters would come free? It means that they have been robbed. 

There is the question of whether the distribution companies were sold to third parties. The tradition in an atmosphere that is rife with greed and graft is that people in power skim such that everything ends with them. People in Nigeria feel that when you are in power, ensure you make the “most” of it. So, the issue of transparency was questionable. If you look at other corporations that were sold at the time, most ended up in the hands of people who were in power at the time of the privatizations. An example is NICON HILTON in Abuja which ended in the hands of the government officials of the Obasanjo’s Presidency.  

Recently, there has been the issue of Band “A” consumer communities that would be charged over N200 per unit of electricity because they get not less than 20 hours of electricity per day. It was a deal struck with the distribution companies. It failed disgracefully as the companies could not keep their side of the bargain and is, thus, an indication that the companies are never sincere, never corporate in their dealings and shouldn’t be trusted to guarantee any improvement in power supply regardless of how much they charge. 

Now, the combined distribution companies made a profit of over eight hundred billion naira in 2022. In 2023, it rose to over a trillion naira. So, when the Minister of Power gave that warning, it seemed like the companies had not been making profits. The question is: why is it that despite these profits, the supply has only declined? At least, we don’t see any electricity.

FG OF Nigeria Unveil Plans to Launch a New National Identity Card with Payment & Social Service Delivery Capabilities

The Federal Government of Nigeria, through the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) in
collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Inter-bank Settlement System (NIBSS), has launched an innovative identity solution with payment functionality for all types of social and financial services to be powered by AfriGO, a National domestic card scheme.

The National ID card, layered with verifiable National Identity features, is backed by the NIMC Act No. 23 of 2007, which mandates NIMC to enrol and issue a General Multipurpose card (GMPC) to Nigerians and legal residents. This card will address the demand for physical identification enabling cardholders prove their identity, access government and private social services, facilitate financial inclusion for disenfranchised Nigerians, empower citizens, as well as encourage increased participation in nation-building.

Only registered citizens and legal residents with the National Identification Number (NIN) will be eligible to request the card. The card, which will be produced according to ICAO standards, is positioned as the country’s default national identity card. In addition to this functionality, cardholders will also be able to use the cards as debit or prepaid cards by linking same to bank accounts of their choice. The card shall enable eligible persons especially those financially excluded from social and financial services have access to multiple government interventions programs.

In line with data protection regulation and public interest, NIMC remains committed to protecting cardholders’ personal data and will ensure compliance with international standards on data security protocols as security features that protect the confidentiality and safety of users’ information.

Key features will include:

• Machine-readable Zone (MRZ) in conformation with ICAO for e-passport information

• Identity card Issue Date and document number in line with ICAO standard

• Additional features include travel, health insurance information, microloans, agriculture, food stamps, transport, and energy subsidies, etc.

• Nigeria’s quick response code (NQR) containing the national identification number

• Biometric authentication, such as fingerprint and pictures, as the primary medium for identity
verification through the data on the card chip

• Offline capability that allows transactions in areas with limited network coverage or zero
infrastructure connectivity

• Functionality as a debit and prepaid card catering to both banked and unbanked individuals.

Request for cards by registered citizens and legal residents will be made available online, at any commercial bank, various agencies or agents participating in multiple programs and/or any NIMC offices nationwide.

Culled from NIMC website. 

Fiction by Yiro Abari High

YIRO ABARI HIGH

Yiro Abari High was born Yiro Abari Pede in Jos, Nigeria, where he currently lives. His love for literature began when he realized that the mood he often felt watching a resplendent sunset or listening to the sound of water trickling between pebbles can be recreated by writers. Since then, he has chosen to walk in the way of literature. He has been published on Brittle Paper and on Kalahari Review. He is the author of How to Become a Music Maestro, available on Amazon.com.

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How Discos Can Optimize Their Operations

In the year 2022, our power transformer “blew up” in May. It took us five months before the power supply returned. The following year, the same happened within the same month. This time, it took seven months before power was restored. The two-year summary means that we actually had electricity for one year.

When the power supply went out in 2023, we sent a delegation to the Jos Electricity Distribution Company (JED) office. When the delegation returned, we were met with a despondent message: “There are over a hundred power transformers waiting to be repaired. Our transformer was the 97th in line.” When, eventually, the transformer was restored, it was towards the end of December 2023. 

We are never really happy even whenever there is a power supply. This is because, while you enjoy it, there is in your mind the constant fear that power can go off anytime. Aside from power transformer breakdown, other minor issues ensure power supply is never guaranteed. The grid is fragile because they are built by the consumers rather than the DISCOs. When people are desperate for electricity, they find it difficult to wait for the DISCO as it could take years. Sometimes, it never comes. When eventually it comes, it is from a government, an NGO or an individual. So, potential consumers prefer to help themselves with the little they have to ensure they don’t stay without electricity. The cables are as cheap as their financial muscle can afford. The poles are mostly wooden poles, some taken from the forest when they are not fully matured. Other consumers simply buy roofing wood and use them as electric poles. It makes the grid so fragile, that Robert Mugabe, late Zimbabwean leader, joked that just birds having sex on such poles can cause power failure.  

So, why are the power transformers always failing? Most power transformers are often overloaded. That is, they serve more than their capacities warrant.  

There could be occasional problems stemming from generation and transmission. Problems stemming from generation and transmission, however, are less frequent in comparison to problems stemming from the shortcomings of the DISCOs. 

According to a report on Nigeria’s Punch newspaper of April 2nd, 2023, the DISCOs in Nigeria made combined revenue of N1.1 trillion and N831 billion in 2022 and 2023 respectively. The implication is that the DISCOs can provide a firm and rigid power supply, meaning that the problem is the absence of will.

 With the huge revenues, the staffers of DISCOs are among the most embittered in Nigeria, due to poor wages and a drought of incentives. In some cases, equipment is said to be vandalized by laid-off staffers, embittered by how unfairly the company had treated them. 

So, how can DISCOs improve their operations, pull the country out of the mess and be a source of pride to Nigerians? Where there is a will, there will always be a way. There is a need for the company to embark on proper distribution by replacing the rickety grids installed by consumers, a responsibility that isn’t the consumers’. Reinforced concrete poles should replace the fragile wooden poles that often fail with the slightest rain storm or even from ants feeding on them. This is in addition to the use of the most efficient cables. 

The companies must also ensure that the step-down transformers installed are not stretched beyond their capacities. This is where the bulk of the challenge lies. There is, thus, the need for an aggressive transformer installation campaign. 

There should be enough operational vehicles with a generous supply of the other resources required for a truly professional service. 

The authorities, through the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, should compel the DISCOs to ensure these reforms are undertaken.