Bayelsa Governor opens fresh perspective to restructuring debate

Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson has opened a fresh perspective to contemporary Nigeria’s debate on restructuring, emphasizing the primacy of the education sector.

“Before any form of restructuring, the first sector to be touched is education, being a paramount one,” stated Mr Dickson, speaking at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, on Thursday.

The Governor was at Ife as the guest speaker at this year’s edition of the Faculty of Arts annual lecture series themed ‘Restructuring and The Search for a Productive Nigeria’.

He identified priority order as one of the factors affecting the functionality of the Nigerian state.

“Our system has failed based on the wrong priorities preoccupying the system,” the Governor said. “And the human resource is the key resource of any intending country that wants to develop and so should be handled appropriately.”

“As an essential element of restructuring, we should identify the system that can deliver justice and not a system that will be diminishing our resources with countless members of the judiciary.”

Citing the challenges from the Niger Delta region, he added that, the Niger Delta environment has been provoked due to lack of careful concern from people in the authority and lack of good roads.

“No good road to the major areas of the oil-producing places in Bayelsa state and yet, that is where the federal government gets a large part of the revenue from,” he said.

Nigeria’s Niger Delta remains a zone of turmoil and faces worsening environmental degradation due to years of oil production.

“The concept of restructuring is not about the concept of unity but rather a Nigeria of egalitarianism; a Nigeria that will be a nation of potentials and this is done through a restructuring of our ideas and productive engagements,” he said.

Some students who spoke with our correspondent lauded the focus of the lecture on education.

However, some expressed disapproval, citing the Governor’s extensive remarks on his administration’s stewardship.

“the guest speaker is meant to speak on the proper ways and forms that restructuring can take to bring about a productive view, but it was surprising when the governor deviated completely from this to how he has worked as a governor, and the present programmes put in place under his administration in Bayelsa state, which practically has no correlation with the issue of discourse,” said, a student, Ganiyu Saheed.