The Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN), on Wednesday declared that Nigerians were fed up with what it called ‘white paper’ development without a corresponding comfort in both the standard and cost of living.
President of MSSN in Lagos State, Dr. Saheed Ashafa, who made this declaration at a press conference on the state of the nation in Lagos, however, charged government of the day under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari and state governors to utilise the available resources in securing decent life for the citizens.
Ashafa who said the association was pleased to say that stability was gradually returning to the country, however, noted that Nigerians were not satisfied with the current state of the nation.
He said that the government must remain focused and avoid distractions in its bid to bring succour to the plight of the citizens.
Ashafa said “Though not satisfied, we are pleased to say that stability is gradually returning to the country. Our dreams that appear shattered about three years ago is now metamorphosing into hope. But we really want to stop hoping with real development and growth of the country.
“We are fed up with ‘white paper’ development without a corresponding comfort in both the standard and cost of living.
“We charge the government of the day to utilise the numerous resources of the country to secure a decent life for the citizenry. The government needs to remain focused and avoid distractions. There is no government without development. We are tired of efforts and predictions, we want accomplishments. We want to start having the real feeling of development.”
He condemned the deplorable state of education which he said was still a source of great concern.
“The deplorable state of education in our dear country is still a source of great concern to us. We need not reiterate the obvious as we had done that in our numerous press releases in the past. Our concern at this moment is how the Buhari government will nip in the bud finally the seemingly intractable problem of industrial actions in the education sector. And a way to do that is by ensuring adequate funding of the sector at all levels, and close monitoring of how allocated funds are utilized!
“It is our belief that if enough fund is injected into the sector and closely monitored, it will improve the standard and quality of education, and by extension the quality of Nigerian graduates”, he said.
Ashafa while speaking further, however, commended Professor Ishaq Oloyede, JAMB Registral for improving the standard of JAMB as well as transparency in handling the affairs of the board.
He said “the education sector is the most important sector to us. Though, the decay in the sector has not been helping matters, the Joint Admission and Matriculations Board (JAMB) stands out, not just in standard but transparency. We reaffirm our confidence in the Registrar of the board, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who has just remitted an additional N2.6bn to the coffers of the Federal Government. We should remember that the board under his administration earlier returned N5.2bn. If one person can lead the board for only one year and return such an amount of money, then he deserved to be commended.
“While we challenge the Federal Government to probe and investigate how former Registrars have managed the funds of the board, it should be noted that only people of integrity like Prof. Oloyede should be appointed to public office. The EFCC should be allowed to beam its searchlight on the education sector.”
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