Eunice Oluwafunmilayo

The Federal Polytechnic, Offa in Kwara State held a campaign against corruption in educational sector in Nigeria on Wednesday.

Speaking during the campaign by the Department of Mass Communication at the school premises, the Acting Rector of FEDPOFFA, Dr. Olarongbe Afolabi reinstated the institution’s commitment to the eradication of corruption.

In his words: “stopping corruption completely in Nigeria, if I say it is possible in Nigeria; I am not being realistic. But the fact is that corruption can be contained. And when you are containing corruption, you are stopping it gradually. The ultimate goal is to stop it completely, but we have to start from somewhere and we are starting on a very good note in this Polytechnic.

“Stopping corruption completely will depend on everyone’s mindset. The thing is in Nigeria we are so hypocritical in fighting corruption. Are we sincere? Or we are just doing mere propaganda? The present government wants to fight corruption. And we would remember when President Muhammadu Buhari assumed power, he said corruption is one of the things he would fight. Security is also there and economy. Buhari has been fighting corruption, but how far has he gone?

“He is doing it, but as far as we don’t change our mindset, it would be very hard to eliminate corruption in this country. But we can get there, we have started. We know where we are going.

“What is manifesting this morning (i.e Corruption in Education Campaign) is an attestation to what the school is doing to fight corruption.

“The present administration which I head is committed to fighting corruption and we are doing it so well. We have been talking to students and staffers.

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“If we are talking about corruption, there are so many fronts to face. Look at the students, are they students aiding corruption? Look at the staff, are they aiding in exploitation and extortion of the students? Sex for marks and the like? It takes two to tangle.” he said.

Dr. Olarongbe added that corruption goes both ways as it is a consented effort which is faithfully pursued before it become manifested.

He said fighting corruption is one of the principal mantras of this administration and the administration has been working with Servicom, Students Union Government (SUG) and other related bodies.

Also, the Head of Mass Communication Department, Wole Alawode said

Wole Alawode, Head of Department said the purpose of the campaign is to call the attention of all concerned persons, agencies and stakeholders to the corruption in the education sector.

“From the look of things, maybe the Federal government have to declare an emergency on the educational sector. We are having problems. What are the youth doing? What are the beliefs system now?

“Shortcut will lead Nigeria to more problems. So that why we need to call attention the attention of the Federal Government to the education sector. Educational malpractices, cheating and all. In Nigeria, everyone has to wake up to how we are developing our youths. And how is the educational system functioning.

“Many students prefer miracles centers now and it is affecting the quality of instructions they receive. Someone that did not have a proper Olevel result, how can such function properly in the tertiary academic environment? And they will be looking for some cheap way out and they will be causing issues in the system. So we have to look for ways not only in the tertiary level but even secondary schools.

“We have to do something about what we produce. As in the quality of secondary school graduates, coming to tertiary institutions.

“Secondly, we have to make sure we curb all forms of corruption, including examination malpractices, cheating, looking for easy way out, sexual abuse, harassment, intimidation of students, sex for mark and all. There are so many of them.

“So this essence of this campaign is to call attention of the Federal government, stakeholders in the society, religious leaders and institutions, and others; let us all come together and address our youths. How they are growing up and what are we doing about it.

“We are calling for emergency declaration. You can see the level of yahoo yahoo (internet fraud), people don’t care again. People don’t seem to see it as a problem.

“Some 30 years ago, a leader was saying if problems at that time were not solved, we were going to have so-so problems such as Boko Haram. We are having them now. So if today’s problem are not addressed, what would they lead to in the future? And we are all here now, where do you want us to run to?” Alawode said.

A lecturer in the Department and the project supervisor, Chucks Okoji said the choice of topic lies in the fact that the success of any society lies in its academic condition.

“We decided to choose this topic because the success of any developed country lies on its education, now the problem we are having is that the budgetary allocation for education in Nigeria is very low compare to all the United Nations.

“Now if we say we want a better Nigeria, we’ll start from the educational aspect, that’s why we have decided to say no to corruption in Education and every other vices like, laboratories and the studios are underequipped.

“There is no way we’ll say we want to be an technological service controls without having an equiped laboratory. So if things are not done the right way, we are going nowhere.

“On admission racketeering, people that are qualified to have admission are not giving admission but people that can pay are given admission, all these are problems. My HOD mentioned something about all these miracle centres when you see student that get admission to 100 level and they cannot read neither can they write their names then you wonder how they passed WAEC, same thing that we wrote.

“So all these things cannot make us go forward as a country until we actually take analystic approach in ensuring that we do what is right to have a better Nigeria especially on educational sector.

“There are many issues concerning the strike from the University and polytechnic, they (ASUP) just finished two weeks strike now and one of those issues that was addressed was the payment of arrears and minimum wage.

“What the lecturers are actually clamouring for is to have a condusive environment for learning, where students can learn and where internet is enabled for every students even at low cost. The world is a global village, the children don’t have tab even if they have phones they don’t have access to the internet and we cannot learn something that is only in Nigeria. We have to go to other climes to learn something, so the refertilization of the educational sector is what those stakeholders in the educational sector are clamouring for and the government seems not to be serious with it.

“It is unfortunate that most of their wars don’t come to public schools like this, if so they would probably have seen the effect and taken step in addressing the issue. And we hope like normal Nigerian that things will be better, we hope (Laughs).” Okoji said.

In addition, Jimoh Olorede, a lecturer and co-supervisor of the campaign said corruption in the section is both endemic and systemic.

“You know in Nigeria, corruption is both endemic and systemic, what we want to achieve like this is actually to start telling the tied from corruption to education. When we say corruption is endemic and systemic that doesn’t mean it affect only a segment, we have variant of corruption in Nigeria so we want to fight it at the level of education.

“We say communication is ubiquitous that is, its everywhere, corruption in Nigeria is equally ubiquitous is everywhere, among the youth, ederly, our leaders, so corruption is everywhere. Our youth usually dominate the population of the country and we have the youth in education so we want to start re- orientation from our end here, especially at the Federal polytechnic offa.

“We have been having this series campaigns, we actually want to change the value system, value orientation of our students and ourselves. Corruption is not peculiar to a variant of the population, it affect everybody, every step of our system so it is high time everybody stood up and fought corruption.

“It is something that ought to have been fought so it’s high time we started fighting it, we have to stop it because it’s affecting the development of the country, is making the poor poorer, the rich richer and as long as the poor remain poorer and the rich get richer then that thing should be problem.

“God forbids Bad thing in this nation where there will be youth revolt, see what happened during the last ENDSARS protest? The youths were so enraged, they were so aggrieved to the extent that they attacked the governor of Osun State (Gboyega Oyetola)”, Olorede said.