This is part of the measures that President Yar’Adua will adopt as an expression of his determination to wage a war against “poverty in the midst of plenty”.

Of course, no one can really eradicate poverty. They haven’t been able to do it even in the US of A, which we readily quote as the model of social welfare for humanity.

The poor, as Our Lord, Jesus Christ, once declared, “are always with us”. However, there is the need to make every effort to decrease their number drastically, especially in Nigeria where, everyone agrees, there is the “potential” to do so.

Our dependence on oil has not improved the situation, especially - or solely - by the execrable manner in which we have managed its blessings. The Federal government now seems determined to advert its mind to our other sources of wealth.

Our mineral resources include, using the President’s list, “tin, phosphate, iron ore, columbite, limestone, gypsum and granite which exist in commercial quantity, and are waiting to be tapped. Our products in agriculture also include, from the same list, “Gum Arabic, cotton, sesame seed, groundnut, millet, sorghum and rice.

I should explain that Yar’Adua made the declaration of war against insufficiency at the opening of the Northern Nigeria Economic and Investment Summit (NEIS), through the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Charles Ugwuh, who represented him. The list of the resources was thus limited to the North.

Otherwise, other agricultural products like cocoa and palm kernels would also have been mentioned. One wished the occasion had been of a more national hue, and then one would not have wondered if the President had been involved simply because he is a Northerner.

One would indeed be more comfortable for the President to be identified with issues and events of a more national nature. That would simply be more wholesome. There are many other people from the North whose participation, at that occasion, would have been more fitting than that of the personage who now belongs to all of us, and should not be seen, rightly or wrongly, to be more particular-about the affairs of any section.

All the same, when the President went on to comment on the lamentable situation in which these potentials have foiled to be converted into wealth, he was definitely speaking for the whole country. He perceived “the missing link” for the actualization of the desirable conversion of our potential resources into wealth, as “industrialization”. That, he felt, would “add value” to these resources.

Hence, “Northern Nigeria”, added the President of the whole of Nigeria, must immediately “log on to the present administration’s development agenda” by doing a number of things. The provision of 10 million naira for the establishment of rice processing clusters stems from this.

However, let me stress that the proposal is for the whole country, not just for the North. Be that as laudable as ever it may, the President seems to have missed the real “missing link”. Industrialization comes after education. That is the first step. In feet, one of the blessings that industrialization confers on a nation is the incentive towards more education.

Education thus has a multiplier effect on the progress of a nation.
The state of our education in Nigeria today is almost a joke  a terrible, terrible joke. We pride ourselves in an astronomical number of universities and polytechnics, which turn out graduates that are unemployed because several of them are unemployable - teachers who cannot express themselves, engineers who can hardly calculate, doctors who qualify from teaching hospitals that are no better than clinics, and so on. Reports of internationally accepted experts say we are about the least educated community in the world.

It is no mere co-incidence that the area of this country that is least educated is also the poorest.
Without disputing the all-pervasive importance of power supply, nothing deserves, indeed demands, a declaration of emergency as much as education... whatever these “declarations” may indeed entail.

We might say it is rather droll, really. A man takes another to court over a serious dispute. He loses the case but appeals to a higher court. The matter drags on and people of goodwill around them plead with the complainant to drop the suit, but he sticks to his guns like a former highly rated soldier.

The defendant in the matter calmly goes on his way, radiating an open confidence akin to that lucid interpretation of “faith” by St. Paul in his letter to the Hebrews: “the evidence of things unseen, the assurance of things hoped for”. He hardly seems to notice the posturing of the other guy who then begins to complain even of that. “He won’t even look my way,” he growls.

That reminds you, doesn’t it, of two young women who engaged each other in a fight which one of them insisted on carrying on, despite several pleas from passersby.

However, the other woman began to get the upper hand. And then the stubborn female shamelessly called the people around to intervene. “Will you all just keep watching us as we continue to fight? She wails. “Won ‘t someone please separate us? “

Is Buhari now missing something from the withdrawal of his political adversary’s attention? Why does he not then throw in the towel? After rejecting the overtures of traditional rulers, and the advice of political allies as well as entreaties of personal friends to stop an action fraught with the possibilities of a heartbreak, he has a clear choice of continuing bravely till the end, or turn around to face unlimited opprobrium.

It may be necessary, if we think about it carefully enough, to re_visit the initials of some of our public organs.

This would be for easy identification when they are being used. The employment of initials is, in feet, for easy identification, first and foremost. It relieves the tedium of having to reel out some lengthy names of certain organizations, whilst it sometimes also adds some measure of glamour to titles. The BBC and VOA are world wide examples.

So also are the UTC and UAC, to say nothing about the NCNC or UPN, as nationally recognizable cases. They abound also in sports, in the names of schools and other institutions. It is therefore of considerable convenience for the initials attached to any organization or group, or even person, to be instantly recognized for what it represents
It used to be that way, until quite recently. For instance, when I recently read a headline describing some activities of the NBC, I was at a loss about what the broadcasting regulatory body, the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission, had to do with the fixing of boundaries.

I found that I had been fooled, as I went into the body of the story, as it related rather to the work of the Nigerian Boundary Commission. I was commenting on this to a friend who said I could, in feet, have confused the same initials with those of the Nigerian Bottling Company, which would be quite comical in a way.

There ought to be a law that would give exclusive rights of ownership, through registration, concerning this matter. Apparently, it does not exist except, perhaps, where the initials are a part of a company’s trademark.

Anyway, just think about the bother if NPA should also belong to, for the purpose of illustration, the “National Prostit... Association “. (They do have such associations of practitioners of the “oldest profession” in some European cities, you know)".

I was really thrilled when I learnt that Joke Silva, that fabulous actress, had been appointed Principal of the MTN Project Fame Academy. I was almost dismayed, thereafter, when I read a denigration of the appointment which exposed so much ignorance, howbeit, in a civil manner.

The point of the criticism was that Joke Silva is not into music, though an accomplished performer. But the lady had not been engaged to teach singing, or voice culture, or any aspect of vocal performance. She is charged with the administration of the academy. That is the primary function of a principal.

She has more than a merely adequate background for the assignment. Her training as an actress at one of the best institutions in the world has exposed her to the experience of how an academy of arts - any branch of the arts- should be run.

She therefore brings into her duties rare concepts and the specialized knowledge of a dyed-in-the-wool professional. The tone of the discipline she would establish would definitely open new vistas of self-awareness to the malleable minds of the young people in the academy.

But then, singing is not only the ability to belt out ballads and melodies, especially when it comes to public performances. Music hall presentations require poise, the establishment of a presence and a measure of general audience appeal. A lot of acting ability is appropriate there too. And who better to impart that than someone who has amassed a lot of wealth in that regard by virtually “living”:it?

Let’s wait for the result of her stewardship. Those who would not approve now are sure to applaud later.
Time out

Today In World History

On this day, in 1970, Fiji, a group of islands in the South Pacific, gained its independence from Britain.

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