The truth about infrastructure in Yobe schools

SIR: The 10 minutes documentary programme titled ‘Yobe Impact’ presented by TVC news Nigeria late last year, refuting the investigative report conducted by one Kasim Isah Muhammad in online newspaper outlets tagged ‘Citizens Report’ over the dilapidated situation of Arikime Primary School, is insensitive to the plight of the people.

It was unfortunate for the Governor Mai Mala Buni administration to debunk such a false zero report amidst the poor education infrastructure bedevilling the Arikime primary school and many of them, if, he is undoubtedly ready to tackle the problem of education in Yobe State.

It’s not gainsaying that Arikime Primary School has over 18,000 pupils with only 41 teachers despite being one of the oldest schools in Yobe State. The school has 126 classrooms and each class accommodates nothing less than 150 students; 98 per cent of the students have no chairs to sit on or tables to write on; they all sit on the floor to receive lectures. And there are no sufficient teachers to handle the school’s classes.

With the above number of students, the school has only two hand pump boreholes and 98 latrines, therefore, resulting in open defecation in the environment. This is to say the pupils are vulnerable to diseases. However, the Arikime is not the only school in Yobe State facing such a challenge as there are many schools in the state with a similar challenge.

Nonetheless, watching the presented documentary by TVC news Nigeria in a  programme titled “Yobe Impact,” one would understand that the programme was one-sided. It was presented to hide the realities happening in the Arikime Primary School by sweeping the truth under the carpet but not to bring the desired change in the state.

The truth is while comparing the two reports presented by the two media outlets (Citizens Report and TVCnews), the facts presented by the Citizen Report correspondent, are no longer physically in the TVCnews documentary programme. Pictures of registered pupils, the affected classrooms, pictures of the latrines, the two boreholes and many more were presented in the report.

But for the TVCnews documentary, only one class is presented; we learned that the class was recently furnished by the government after the report of the ‘Citizens Report’ went viral in the media in their quest to bury the issue. To verify my stand, when one looks at the below video, he will understand that it’s only a single class that is continually on display. https://youtu.be/-83-YgL18_U

Therefore, let me call the attention of the governor to do needful and stop refuting what is already the truth and intervene in the Arikime among other primary schools situation. This is to bring the desired change that Yobe State people are yearning for.

Abubakar Ngoma Bilal wrote from the Department of Mass Communication, Borno University.