An open Letter to the Governor
Rivers State Scholarship Students,
Sedaya College,
Malaysia,
We the entire third batch of the Rivers state scholarship students here in Malaysia join other true lovers of justice and beyond to congratulate Honourable Rotimi Chibuike Ameachi the Executive Governor of Rivers State and we are using this opportunity to hail the supreme court of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the landmark judgment.
By this judgment, the international community has once again seen the Nigerian Judiciary as a true dispenser of justice. The entire Rivers State students here in Malaysia receive the news of this judgment with joy and happiness.
We applaud the Honourable former speaker for your perseverance, the maturity you displayed, the obstacles you overcame and above all, the democratic ideals you showed in this matter. Justice is what the common man yearns for when oppressed by the rich and mighty or even his fellow common man. Today, we sincerely pour our hearts of gratitude to the Almighty God for giving you justice and thereby enthroning justice in Rivers State and Nigeria at large. This judgment will surely go into the annals of history. Honourable Former Speaker, with the way you fought, we have no iota of doubt in our hearts that your tenure in office will be the best that Rivers people would have witnessed since the creation of the state in 1967. Thank you for the dogged mannered way in which you fought. As you rightly said "this is victory for democracy, victory for the rule of law and victory for justice"
Honourable Former Speaker, we want to use this medium to draw your attention and the government of Rivers State to the injustice done to her sons and daughters here in Malaysia. If this is not corrected, it will destroy the lives of about Three Hundred (300) youths of Rivers State. To begin with, the Rivers State government had a master plan of training its youth through the Human Capital Development project so as to empower us in all areas of Engineering, especially oil and gas industry. But unfortunately this good intention of the state government has been hijacked by some unscrupulous persons. We were sent to a university college (University College Sedaya International ‘UCSI ‘) to study this highly technical area of oil and gas engineering. Everything about this school that they claim we are now studying at amount to nothing. This is a sub-standard school that does not even have local reputation not to mention the international level. There are no Malaysian students in this school; the only few are doing their international degree pathway (A levels and diploma) so as to transfer to the UK, Australia, Canada and the USA for their courses. We are currently running a one year foundation in science (A pre degree program). Of the number of students in this program, about 90% are Rivers State Scholarship Students. This verify the fact that the Malaysian students do not study engineering of what so kind in this school. This is not a school to study engineering. It is somebody's business that has not been recognized by the Malaysian Ministry of Education as a degree awarding institution. Currently the school is running two engineering disciplines, Electrical/Electronics and Mechatronics Engineering, the former was introduce in 2005 and the later 2006.These courses were newly introduce and they have no experience whatsoever in the engineering environment. These courses have not been accredited by the Malaysia Ministry of Education, and may not be, in the next five years following the huge amount of resources involve. The teaching staff is a mess to the study of engineering as the two engineering departments has only one Associate professor, three Masters Degree holders and the rest are Bachelor Degree holders. These lecturers are not experienced enough to teach the engineering courses. The school's laboratories are ill-equipped. They can't even boast of one workshop. We can comfortably compare this school to the Rivers State College of Arts and Science of which RIVCAS is even better in terms of academic standards, labouratories and teaching staffs. What a tragedy! We are not trying to spell the school neither are we trying to say that we are not grateful to the Rivers State Government but we are telling the government of Rivers State that this school is not capable of training its student.
Though we complained severally, but rather than coming to our aid, the immediate past commissioner for education(Dr.Mrs Ngozi Odu), resorted in blackmailing us that we are been given excess allowances , and that we are using the excess money to buy cars, go to clubs, take alcohol etc. This is very far from the truth. As these were ways of diverting the attention of our parents, and the government of Rivers State on the issues on ground so that she and all those involve will continue to enrich themselves to the detriment of our future and Rivers State in general. The allowances she said we are being given excess is very meager when compared with the cost of living here in Malaysia. This is why those of our colleagues in the University of Nottingham and The Kuba University of technology Russia allowances had been increase. If the money were to be excess, why did she (Dr.Mrs.Ngozi Odu) agree to increase their allowances recently (September, 2007). Though this increment have not been effected in Sedaya College, it is not our major concern for now as the kind of training and degree we will get at the end of the day remains our utmost source of concern.
It may surprise the government of Rivers State that the Malaysians mock at us, saying that the government that sent us here are not well informed. Even taxi drivers do tell us that their children cannot study in this college. And we do see reasons with them.
Take for instance, due to the way this scholarship scheme was publicized, Ekiti State Government who wanted to emulate the River State Government wanted to send its students to this same school but unlike the immediate past commissioner, delegates were sent by the Ekiti State government to come and verify, the infrastructures the school claims to have. When they came, they were amazed as they saw an ‘empty school' of engineering. Today Ekiti State government had sent its students to the UK. As a marketing strategy, the college has design its website beautifully so as to lure customers .This is in line with what the Holy Bible says that "the devil has disguise itself as an angel of light so his agents have disguised themselves as agents of righteousness". They use this site to recruit the innocent students especially from Africa.
For the past few months, we have read media reports particularly from The Tide Newspaper, claiming that all is well with the Rivers State Scholarship Students here in Malaysia. That is another ploy that the past commissioner for education used to cover up. We want to draw the attention of the Rivers State Government and that of our parents alike that the brain behind our present predicaments is one so called consultant by name Dr Kester (an Igbo man). From what we have seen this man does not have the interest of Rivers State at heart. He is the brain behind proffering strategies to block our complains from reaching the State government and our parents.
Here in Malaysia, we have the second batch and the third batch Rivers State Scholarship Students. The second batch is in the University of Nottingham (UK) Malaysian campus whereas we the third batch are here in Sedaya College (UCSI). The truth is that there is a very big difference between us and those of our colleagues in the University of Nottingham. Permit us to give a brief statistics of what we mean.
The tuition fees per student at the University of Nottingham for international students is Thirty Seven Thousand Malaysian Ringgit (RM37, 000), this is about N1.3M, an equivalent of Ten Thousand, Five Hundred and Seventy-one US Dollars ($10,571), while that of Sedaya College is Ten Thousand Malaysian Ringgit (RM10, 000) this is about Three Hundred and Forty Thousand Naira, an equivalent of Two Thousand, Five Hundred US Dollars ($2,500). Also the least lecturer at the University of Nottingham is a Doctorate Degree holder, while at UCSI there is only one doctorate degree holder and bunch of B.Sc. lecturers in Sedaya College. Thirdly, the University of Nottingham is ranked 75th in the world's top 100 universities rankings while Sedaya College is not yet recognize as a University. Also, the University of Nottingham labouratories and workshops are amongst the best in the world while in Sedaya College there is no single workshop and ill-equipped labouratories. The list of the differences can go on and on. More so, there are only about ninety Rivers state scholarship students there in the University of Nottingham while there are about three hundred of us here in Sedaya College. Why do they want to sacrifice the future of about three hundred of us for that of ninety in the University of Nottingham? Is it not the same state government that awarded the scholarship to some to study in the University of Nottingham that awarded us same scholarship too? Why this great disparity?So when they get one student (Ogbonnaya) from the University of Nottingham to tell our parents and the Rivers state government that all is well with us here in Malaysia, it was just a deception.
The Rivers state government in the 70's sent its student to the UK, of Which Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Odu was a beneficiary, how could a learned woman like her send us to a Malaysian local school that is one of the worst schools in Malaysia. How can a woman we call our mother try to ruin the life of her very own children. We say this because she knows that the School is really sub-standard yet she wouldn't let our parents and the Rivers State government know the true state of the school. Recently, we have been made to know that some wealthy persons whose children are studying here with us would be moved to Canada by January, 2008. They have even filled the admission form for the University of Manitoba, Canada. They will be leaving by January. If this School were to be alright as she claim, why is does she want to transfer five persons from this school to the University of Manitoba, Canada still on the Rivers State Government sponsored Scholarship. The question most of us keep asking is that on what reason(s) are these three students being transferred to Canada? Are they academically better? Or more Rivers than the others?
The Hon. Former speaker, we are indeed very sorry that this is happening at this point time when you are just coming into office, but if we do not voice it out now, the y will continue with the hypocrisy and ruin our lives and the future of the state. The Governor, it was during your reign as the speaker of the rivers state house of assembly that this human capital development bill was signed in to law. By this we know that you have a better understanding of where the government intends taking us to and the kind of training the government envisage.
We want to make this solemn demand to the present state government; (a)That the third batch scholarship scheme should be revisited, (b)We will prefer to come back home to look for admission into Nigerian Universities than to continue in this school because there is no future with this kind of school;(c)That should the Rivers State Government decide to set up a committee to look into this, the immediate past commissioner of education should not be included;(d)That a well cultured Rivers State indigene should be given the consultancy job(not Dr. Kester-the Igbo man).We equally want to suggest that for the one year foundation programme we are doing in Sedaya College not to be in vain, the government can through the international degree pathway send us to better schools. We want to equally make this solemn pledge to the state government that any action taken to save us from this situation that is very critical in our lives will be reciprocated with gratitude and we would do our best to make the state and our parents proud. We do not have a future in this school.
Thank you in anticipation that justice will be done to us.
Signed.
Rivers State Scholarship students (Third Batch).
Sedaya College (UCSI).
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.