From Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
Emmanuel Secondary School Old Boys Association (ESSUOBA), Ugbokolo, Benue State has expressed great concern over the perennial crises facing the educational system in Nigeria.
The Association, through its newly elected President, Capt. Patrick Olonta stated this during its 2022 Annual Delegates Convention held recently in Ugbokolo, Benue State where new executives were elected.
He lamented that falling standard of education, infrastructural crisis, examination malpractices, moral decays, cultism, strikes and other challenges have caused a wreck on the nation’s educational system.
He therefore harped on the need to surmount those challenges to give the country a clear leverage for competitiveness in the contemporary reality of a global knowledge economy.
“The role of old Boys and Old Girls in rebuilding and giving direction to the affairs of their alma mater through critical intervention cannot be over emphasized.
“Making critical intervention to salvage our national educational system is critical role demanded of our Old Boys and Old Girls across our nation to enable us lift our educational system from the lowest ebb it has sank and to improve human capital resource development which is the greatest weapon of competition in the twenty first century.”
Olonta further decried the fast deplorable situation in the school both in its infrastructure and educational standards, stressing that Emmanuel secondary school Ugbokolo used to be one of the best schools in Benue State and ranked very high nationally too and managed under the Catholic mission.
He said the School which was founded in 1968 has produced Old Boys who have contributed greatly to national and international development in different spheres of health, education, banking and finance, national security, politics, aviation, energy and other parts of national bureaucracy.
The (ESSUOBA) President listed old boys of the school who have continued to contribute meaningfully to the development of the country to include people like Senator Abba Moro, Vice Chairman Senate Committee on Inter Parliamentary Affairs and one time Minister of Internal Affairs.
Others are Major General Elias Atuh of the Nigerian Army, Prof. Agbulu, Deputy Vice Chancellor Federal University of Agriculture, Prof. Armstrong Adejoh of Benue State University, among many others.
“Education is the bed rock of national development. Hence any nation that looks down or takes its educational system for granted suffers the danger of jeopardizing its national interest in the long run,” Olonta stated.