Imo State And Bad Leadership

By Kenneth Uwadi In Imo State we have the problem of bad leadership. Government apologists, representatives and bourgeois commentators are painting pictures of all is well in the state. But all is not well. Bad leadership is manhandling the people of the State. Imo is currently under the rule of chronically inept, fantastically corrupt and rotten capitalists. When you talk, the rotten capitalists will come after you to stop you from talking. Fear has made the people to sit down without saying anything while the governor rules the state from Abuja. I am sad at the rot of public schools in the state. The education sector is neglected and underfunded. For Governor Hope Uzodinma and his cronies, the neglect and underfunding of the education sector in the state is not a problem. Like the adage goes, a hunch-back cow is a big gain for the butcher. Every year, funds are said to be made available, anti poor anti peoples policies are formulated, plans and budgets are said to be be approved. And there are still schools without any pupil furniture or safe classrooms in the state, teachers are still not being employed and rural schools have few or no teachers. Public education in Imo state is facing several crises. Some of these include leaking roofs, flooded school premises, overcrowded classrooms, unsafe and unhealthy school environment, decayed infrastructures and a curriculum largely aimed at making students acquire skills that will at best in future make them an army of unskilled laborers. But this is not all. There is also the problem of a poorly-motivated and overburdened teaching force. Before the 2023 governorship election , Governor Uzodinma announced the names of newly recruited teachers.This turned out to be a fake recruitment. Till date these teachers have not been employed. Last year they were called for verification but still they have not been employed. Test scores are down in Imo, and violence is up. Parents are screaming at school boards, and children are crying on the couches of social workers. Anger is rising. Patience is falling. The numbers are all going in the wrong directions. Enrollment in schools is down. Absenteeism is up. There aren’t enough teachers, substitutes or bus drivers. What then can be news is the fact that the hammer is already being wielded to finally nail the coffin of public education in Imo. This is happening by way of the massive shortage of teachers in nearly all subject areas in public schools coupled with the refusal of the government to do the needful by recruiting new hands to fill in the vacancies. From one local government to another the same dismal situation prevails. The secondary schools are not different. All this means that teachers in the state are overworked and are not able to pay enough attention to individual pupils because of the sheer numbers they have to handle. Added to the above is the attendant implication that overwork has for teachers’ health. Little wonder why the standard of education in Imo is on a decline and mass failure on the rise. The education sector in Imo is completely dead as dry laboratories; congested classrooms; poor conditions of learning in schools; are the order of the day. The handwriting on the wall today is clear that the Uzodinma’s government toed the path of austerity policies. Schools in Imo today cannot afford to provide ordinary chalks and printed examination questions for its schools. The governments deliberately allowed public schools in Imo to die and encouraged private schools to thrive. Public resources that were in the past budgeted for social amenities have now become fair games for treasury looters and corrupt politicians. Businessmen who yearly spend billions on political campaigns are in turn compensated through government policies, while politicians equally compensate themselves with large chunks of annual budget, earmarked for their emolument and looting. The result of government policy of neglect of schools in Imo is the tragic conditions on our campuses today. From the bed-bug infested mattresses at the prestigious Imo State University Teaching Hospital Hostels in Orlu and the poor health infrastructure and official negligence, to the decayed hostel facilities and dirty toilets and bathrooms at University of Agriculture Umuagwo, things are so bad for Imo students nowadays. It is unfortunate that the student bodies we have in Imo are not up to the task as they have completely turned into instruments in the hands of the State. Instead they have engaged in one scandal upon another. Who will save Imo State in 2027? Time will tell. Kenneth Uwadi is the Coordinator of Youths for Human Rights Protection and Transparency Initiative