AMIDST sprays of teargas and hot water, students and staff of polytechnics and Colleges of Education held their ground, protesting at the front of the National Assembly in Abuja on Tuesday.

SEVEN years after the establishment of Ajoki Secondary School, the only secondary school in Ajoki, an Itsekiri oil-producing community in Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State, the indigenes have continued to decry what they describe as government’s insensitivity to the plights of the school children.

WIth the rise in population over the years, the world Bank says, from approximately 140 million in 2006, 162 million in 2011 , to 174 million in 2013 and predicted 221 million by 2020, every aspect of the nation has experienced rapid change.

Kavita Pandit is a profes-sor of Geography from University of Georgia, Athens, USA. She delivered the convocation lecture at Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education (AOCOED), Otto/Ijanikin last week on The Internalisation of Higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges.

HOWEVER, before the shooting (verbal or guns) starts in earnest, it is necessary for all of us to get familiar with some facts which will not suddenly change and which might guide us when making collective and individual decisions on this matter. These might be called the Iron Laws of our economic (read FOOD) life in Nigeria today. Any rash step and we topple into the abyss – the end of which nobody knows.