Gov Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State
Ebonyi state government has pledged to partner UNICEF in the training of teachers to ensure quality education in the state.
Governor Dave Umahi,made this known in Abakaliki when he received in audience, the country representative of UNICEF,Nigeria and ECOWAS,Ms.Jean Gough, on Monday. Governor Umahi, who restated that his administration had put every machinery in motion to hand over some schools to missionaries, said he remained committed to the provision of quality education and primary health care services to the people.
While thanking UNICEF for offering to train teachers in the state, the governor described the offer as a welcome development in view of the fact that some teachers lack focus in their calling. He said, ” We are going to collaborate and see how we first of all do a seminar for our teachers. They should understand their bearing. You know a lot of them were just employed without a focus. No idea of what to do. No passion for the job; so we want to tune for the passion for the job and see if we can get right the pathway for our educational system”
“We told you our passion apart from infrastructure to hand over some schools to missionaries which you were very excited,in fact, you said we should understudy Anambra State that they did that and in all their external exams, they come first in the South- East”.
Governor Umahi identified ‘power as the major hindrance to primary health system and called on UNICEF to assist by providing solar lights to all primary health centers in the state.
In her remark, Gough thanked the Ebonyi State government for being part of the success story in the certification of Nigeria as a polio free country, come 2017, by the WHO and the containment of the Ebola epidemic, which the former minister of health that tackled the problem, was from Ebonyi State.
She described such developments as good for Africa. Gough said her mission was to collaborate with Ebonyi State in the area of primary health care which she described as the corner stone of every population,stressing that 70 percent of the diseases are related to primary health. Other areas UNICEF wants to collaborate with Ebonyi state,according to Gough,include,education,protection of children against obnoxious practices like genital mutilation.
Meanwhile, women of Ebonyi State now have every reason to smile. This is because the State Governor, Chief Umahi, has assured that 50 per cent of those to be made the caretaker coordinators of development centres would be wowen. He also told the gathering at the swearing in and inauguration of boards and commission members in Abakaliki on Friday that most of the Vice-Chairmen of all the Local Government Areas in the state would be women.
The governor said his decision was predicated on the fact women played enormous roles in his victory at the last governorship election. He appealed to the Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) to shelve their planned warning strike scheduled to commence on Monday because “it will not help them.”
Umahi urged them not to violate the agreement reached between labour and the special committee on workers’ salaries, saying “they all accepted that all the funds coming from their federal allocation cannot pay what they are requesting for; so we can only cut our coat according to our cloth.”
On the state of roads in the capital city of Abakaliki, Governor Umahi disclosed that the government would soon embark on the reconstruction of 200 urban roads. He therefore directed the Ministry of Works to ensure that at least one local contractor from each of the 13 local Government Areas and the urban forum benefitted from the exercise. Umahi reiterated his belief that “in the next one, year Abakaliki would be like other capital cities”.
The governor announced that an agricultural summit on rice production would take place in the state on Monday and enjoined Ebonyians to come out and participate in it. “We want to get back to number one position in food, especially production in this country,” he said, adding that the government would subsequently organise summits on cassava, poultry and maize productions.
Governor Umahi, who decried the volume of corruption and crisis in the state, charged the new appointees to cleanse the state of corruption, create wealth in their respective areas and be the vanguard of peace. The governor directed the Ebonyi State Independent Electoral Commission (EBSIEC) to liaise with state House of Assembly on electoral law to enable his administration conduct Local Government Elections soonest.
He used the occasion to announce the dissolution of the State Millennium Development Goals and the appointment of Dr. Ngozi Obichukwu as the facilitator of the new Sustainable Development Goals. The governor opined that all the projects not completed by the Millenium Development Goals would be inherited and completed by the Sustainable Development Goal.
Among the bodies whose members were inaugurated were the Women Development Centre, the Boundary committee chaired by the Deputy governor, Kelechi Igwe; the Secondary Education Board, Board of College of Education Ikwo, and the State Planning Commission. Bodies whose members were sworn in are the Civil Service Commission, the Local Government Service Commission, the Ebonyi State Independent Electoral Commission, State Universal Basic Education Board. Special Assistant on Special Duties, Mr. Nnanna Onyeabor Ngene, also sworn in.
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