The Sun News On-line/politics

Recently, the Catholic Womens' Organisation of the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Enugu, bestored the Gold Excellence Award on Senator Joy Emodi, among others, in recognition of her contributions to national development and the welfare of the people.
Senator Emodi, chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, and a member of the Constitution Review Committee, thereafter spoke to Daily Sun on the ASUU strike, proposed review of the constitution, the joy of the award she received from the Catholic women, and the raging controversy over post-JAMB examinations, among other issues.

The Award
I'm very grateful to the Catholic Womens' Organisation of the Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Independence Layout, Enugu, to have appreciated the little contributions that I have made to better the lots of our people. To have given me the award, is a clear manifestation that they appreciate what I have done so far.

I'm even more elated that they also saw in the Senate President, qualities that qualified him for such a prestigious award. I really thank them and I want to utilse this opportunity to convey the heart-felt appreciation of the Senate President, David Mark, for this honour done him. We have spoken because I represented him here, and he is quite grateful.

ASUU face-off with the federal government
Whatever I'm going to say on this matter, does not represent the views of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but represents the views of Senator Joy Emodi, representing Anambra North Senatorial zone.
I pleaded with ASUU not to embark on strike. I told them that it was going to be unpopular strike because the children of this country are going to be affected, and that those who were going to be affected were mostly the children of the poor, the middle class and the less privileged.
The rich in the society have their children abroad, and I appealed to them to temper justice with mercy, because it's not always that you go out for the kill. I urged them to resort to dialogue, and see how to resolve that problem. My committee (Education) actually got worried about it, and we held a serious meeting with all the stakeholders involved in the impasse.

In the process, we discovered that the 49 lecturers of the University of Ilorin, were sacked, not as a result of the national strike, but because of an internal strike at the university. That day, even the students' union leadership, the vice chancelor, and all the stakeholders were there, and they told us everything that happened. At the end of the day, my committee came out with a communique, reqesting ASUU to ask the lecturers to apologise, so that they would be re-absorbed unconditionally.

If you were at that meeting, you will be disgusted with what happened, and especially with the conduct of the sacked lecturers, the way they wanted to disrupt exams in the university, and so on. They even wrote some foreign bodies, castigating their own institution, and I saw that as unpatriotic and should be condemned. That you have a trade union doesn't mean that you should resort to violence or acts of irresponsibility.

We tried our best, and at the end of it all, ASUU said that they would not accept our recommendations. Be that as it may, we still advise that they carry on with dialogue, instead of going on strike. I still appeal to them to shelve it, and in any case, it's going to be an unpopular strike.

Constitution review
When I say that I'm not a feminist, some people attack me for saying that. I think that we have so many other important issues to be looked at, and thank God that I'm a member of the Constitution Review Committee. I think that enshrining in the constitution, the percentage of elective positions set out for women, should be part of it. Many women have been pleading, requesting and fighting for the inclusion of affirmative action in our constitution.

I have my reservations there, but all the same, when the time comes, we see how to tackle that issue. We also have to, more importantly, look into the inequity in relation to the number of states in a zone. You have a situation whereby a zone has seven states, and another zone, five states. This is a country where people work together under one principle, the principle of unity in diversity.
So, the only thing I think we can do to strenthen the unity of this country, is that of equity. But whether it would be accomodated in the constitution that women must get , maybe 30percent of elective positions in the country, is another thing. We have to look at that seriously.

Post-JAMB examinations
This is not a replacement for JAMB, and it will never be. It’s just a refining examination. Let me tell you quite frankly, Post-JAMB is the greatest thing that has ever happened to our educational system in this country, so the issue of whether JAMB would be scrapped, doesn't arise. It goes hand-in-hand with JAMB.What is there? It's just like taking an examination, and then going for an interview.

I was a symphatiser, when people were kicking against Post-JAMB, but the then Minister of Education came up with her defence, so my committee summoned her. She came with scripts of some students, and we also got some independently. Students who scored 273 in JAMB, scored zero in Post-JAMB.Somebody who wanted to read Law was asked the qualities of a good lawyer, and she said that a good lawyer must read the Bible, a good lawyer must greet people, a good lawyer must eat well, and that was the only question she answered.

Then, there was this script of a person who wanted to read Medicine, a potential doctor that would treat you and I, scored 261 in JAMB, and in Post-JAMB, he scored either one percent, or zero again. He was asked the difference between an animal and a plant, he said, number one, an animal makes love, plant does not, an animal can dance, plant cannot dance, an animal can make argument, a plant cannot make. Yes! These were his exact words, and he even forgot that in some circumstances, plants can dance if there is breeze, since he's so daft, and that a goat cannot argue with anybody. That also, is an animal. I have photocopies of these scripts.

So, it's never an issue of passing a vote of no confidence in JAMB./ They will conduct their exams quite alright, then the successful candidate will go for post-JAMB examination, and remember that universities reserve the right to determine the quality of students they want to admit.