For a woman whose primary aim of coming to the United Kingdom 12 years ago was to study for a Ph. D in Nursing, Nigerian-born Professor Uduak Archibong of the University of Bradford. has now become an apostle of Diversity and will take the lead on all race equality issues.

Recently appointed the university's first professor of Diversity, and by implication, the first person to hold such office in Britain, Prof. Archibong needs not hire a spin doctor to tell her she's a trail blazer. "It's fantastic, but it's also a challenge and I welcome it," she told The Guardian .

Speaking about her appointment, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Chris Taylor said, "For this post, we needed someone with a strong commitment to promoting racial equality, but also someone credible to black and minority ethnic staff and students and to the management groups and committees to which they will report. Professor Archibong is all of these things."
Asked whether she was expecting the new status, she said: "Absolutely...but this is much of a promotion, not a new appointment. It's a meritorious rise, and shouldn't be mistaken for an honourary post. I've worked for it, I've done a lot of work on the subject, so I'm not surprised it happened.

" In fact, many people expected that I would be made a professor last year or this year, so it doesn't surprise me, it happened in April, even though it wasn't made public until September."
But how challenging was it upgrading herself from the position of a nurse to a professor? "I frown at people who say I was once a nurse," was her modest reply. "I'm still one even if I'm not giving anyone injections. I'm just involved in advancing nursing knowledge in other ways, but that doesn't mean I'm no longer a nurse."
Even though she hasn't lost touch with her first love, Udy 's responsibilities will be to encourage and support an increase in Black and Minority Ethnic representation on University committees at all levels.

Besides, she will also take the university's message to other educational institutions, national bodies and employers to provide advice and information on best practice.

Wearing two hats is a challenge she knows she can't hide from."I relish the opportunities afforded by these two posts in furthering the future development of Diversity research and the growing profile of Diversity in the university, "she added.

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Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), believes that the people of the Niger Delta should get more interested in governance issues. He told GORDI UDEAJA in Umuahia, Abia State during the public presentation of the Niger Delta Region Development Draft Master Plan to the government that despite government's efforts, a lot is still dependent on the people. Excerpts

ON the strategy behind the master plan?
It is the overall thrust of the development recommended for the region to raise the peoples' standard of living above their poverty line, achieve the millennium development goals and progress beyond these to enhance the technological and industrial capacity of the region. The plan sets out the strategies and specific policies and intervention that should be adopted in order to achieve these. It also seeks to create favourable conditions for greater productivity and economic enterprise in rural and urban areas and by all sections of the population.

Specifically, it should address the enabling conditions for enterprise, efficient agriculture and industrialisation in the region in order to utilise the abundant natural resources and create the economic wealth needed to achieve the higher standards of living which preserving the ecosystem for long term sustainability.

On the process of preparing the Draft Master Plan; and the level of consultation
First, President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, while inaugurating the NDDC Board directed that a Master Plan be prepared. Secondly, the wide consultations was to involve all stakeholders to make input, which implied that they were required to state what they would want as the direct beneficiaries of the vision.

Thirdly, for NDDC to avoid the failure of past interventions to develop the region, which failure has indisputably been ascribed to operating without a genuine framework or plan. The lack of a plan could be traced to either the governments or the bodies saddled with the responsibility of the intervention.

On the stakeholders and their involvement
The stakeholders include the nine states of the Niger Delta Region and those as defined specifically in the NDDC Act of 2000. The idea was to involve the Niger Delta region in the making of the master plan. People have wrongly referred to the master plan as that of NDDC. It is not an NDDC property. It is a deliberate programme of action plan, which the NDDC only facilitated its preparation.

On the implementation and how binding it would be on the stakeholders
The on-going public presentation of the Draft Master plan whose aim is to enable stakeholders study it, make comments in form of addendum. Rejections or amendments will thereafter be necessary and will be incorporated in a final document as approved. The final master plan will become binding on all to implement after it would have been legislated upon. The NDDC intends to prepare a Bill on the final draft and send to the nine states to legislate upon.

It will become a working document whose implementation ought to be binding and effected, irrespective of the governments in power, or who is in the NDDC board or management.

The problem we have in the country is that those who initiate policies often do not remain in office to execute same. There is no guarantee that this master plan for the Niger Delta Region development will be implemented when this NDDC board serves out its tenure or the present Federal Government or those of this nine states of the Niger Delta serve out their tenure.

But if we are talking about after the expiration of the tenure of the present NDDC board, that would be the decision of the President. Once the said legislation is effected, continuity has been entrenched. The issue would not totally be who is there per se but to ensure that those that share the vision of the President on the Niger Delta are manning the NDDC. If the President leaves a substantial number of members of the present NDDC board, the continuity, transition and development can go on following the master plan and the Act.

Already people fear that after the tenure of our board, which prepared this master plan, our successors may not actualise what we started and therefore have the time to initiate theirs.

The problem the country always had is that a person who comes to implement development, necessarily must begin a new project. In the meantime, there are a number of uncompleted projects started by other people. So you find that we waste a lot of our materials and resources in duplicating projects, which are very often abandoned. What this Master Plan is about is to create a plan or framework, which all stakeholders can agree on and successive managers will follow, where their predecessors stopped.

What it says is the way we want to go - what we want to achieve in 15 years, the way we want to get there and the role each of us the stakeholders should play. If they agree on that, and each plays that role accordingly, then all will move together. This will check this attitude of each new comer starting a new project instead of completing the ones he met on the ground. The critical part of this master plan is its recommendation on governance. To a high degree, there has been a failure of governance throughout Nigeria. That is a major problem. So we are proposing that people should be interested in issues on governance, and through this ensure that the master plan is followed.

If this is so, it does not matter who is in government or at the NDDC. What we are expecting is that in this envisaged 15 years plan, the first five years would see the reduction of poverty in the region. After this period, there will be a review to make adjustments. Another five years after, the region would have started roaring economically and by the end of the 15 years, it would have become the most peaceful and prosperous region in Nigeria.

On the nature of reactions from the states that already have the Draft Master Plan
The reactions have been positive. But some newspaper reports misrepresented the views of the state governors. There are some misconceptions about the master plan. Then there are those who think that it is too big to let the NDDC implement it alone. We have managed to force down our administrative expenses below 10 per cent. Therefore 90 per cent of what the NDDC gets can be devoted to development. We told the government that if Nigeria is devoting 30 per cent of its resources to development issues, the Niger Delta constitutes one quarter of this and therefore should get one quarter of this N30 billion. But not for NDDC to spend, rather it is for the Federal Government to spend that on its Niger Delta programmes. Similarly, we are saying to the states governments, if you get so much money let us face it, there is money here. From derivation alone this year, what the nine state governments will get is about N270 billion. It is not shared equally, but there is an extra N270 billion coming through 13 per cent derivation to the nine states. If you devote 30 per cent of that to development issues, you are talking of about N82 billion. There is money coming to the local councils. If they devote 20 per cent, just 20 per cent - that is another sum. When you get those devoting money to development, the volume is large, they can generate a critical mass. We can make a difference in five years; it is possible.

On the impact of the 15 year plan on states like Abia.
Abia has serious potentials. Though all the details were not yet done, but there are great poles - places you build on the capacities of the people. It is not surprising that Abia people picked power as their first priority, because if there is guaranteed power, Abia will be rearing; there will be new capacity manufacturing developing. But what we are looking at is to build on the existing potential for the quick results as a quick-win part of our programme. A lot should happen in the first five years, throw more light on the law on the proposed final master plan to give it the biting teeth.

We facilitated this master plan for the development of the Niger Delta Region. Each of the nine states has a government running; each state should make a law to enable the Master Plan to be implemented. We will offer the NDDC draft bill on the final master plan. The nine states and the hope to persuade them successfully to pass it into law.

On the complaints of disparity of funding by some states in the NDDC region.
The Imo State governor complained that even Abia gets more than his state, which he said produces more oil than (Abia). The law requires the use of oil production figures/quota in distributing what is available. In addition, we look at ourselves as a regional development commission in which case we should not leave any place without some presence. When we combine these parameters, we arrive at a formula that the bigger quota goes to the bigger oil producers, the small one to the smaller ones while making sure that no one gets zero.

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There is hardly any state in the federation that can match Akwa Ibom in the area of hospitality. It is a gift, which many, after a visit to the land of immense rainforest, take back home with deep satisfaction. The inhabitants there are neat, kind, and helpful. It is a land of beautiful women too. There is this popular rumour that if you want a pleasant wife who can do all the cooking, jokes apart, Akwa Ibom is the place to go.

However, there is a problem. Primary education in the state, is in dire straits. The needs are huge. Extremely complicated. Disheartening too. If you went up in the air in a helicopter over Uyo, the capital city, the first thing you saw were dilapidated primary school buildings. It is that bad. How the situation got to this sorry state remains a puzzle, and could leave any stakeholder wondering over what the various state governments in the past years have been doing.

The state has 31 Local Education authorities that look after its 1098 public primary schools. According to the statistics provided by its primary education board, there were 672,523 pupils in the public schools before 1999, when the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Scheme was launched. At the moment, the figure has jumped to 1,500,350 out of which 771,215 are girls. To cope with this influx, an additional 3500 science and social science teachers were recruited. But at least, 3750 more are still needed. The total number of classes available is 14, 932, out of which only 4,791 are in a manageable condition. The rest are in a bad shape. Only 30 schools have computers. A paltry 27 have libraries. More ridiculous is the fact that, of the 12, 420 teachers' tables and chairs available in the whole of Akwa Ibom, only 3,888 are in good condition! The rest are not. Now wait for this. The total number of toilets needed is 902. But only 190 are available.

When The Guardian visited Saint Dominic Primary School at Ikot Oso/Ekpan, under Eket local council, half of the school blocks had broken down. A block of about three classrooms had decayed so much that you could smell maggots from them. The blocks that are still standing are likely to give way under a fairly strong rainstorm. The inside of all the classrooms had weather-beaten and severely cracked desks and chairs. The blackboards were half-alive. A teacher, Miss Joy Bassey, who was found in the school premises during the visit, could only let out a wry smile when she was asked how teachers coped under such conditions. She wanted to talk, but couldn't. She managed to shake her head, smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

Efforts have been made by both the current state government and the primary education board to correct some of the ills. Some 124-classroom blocks with toilets have been renovated through funds provided by the Education Tax Fund (ETF). Construction of 31 libraries and provision of library furniture for 43 schools have commenced. Procurement of 30 additional computers and 34.5 KVA generators is in the pipeline. Since 1999, 28,000 dual desks were purchased by the board through ETF funds and distributed among the schools. Under the UBE/World Bank community self-help, 16 motor cycles and 30 bicycles were purchased for the schools. The board also provides instructional materials on a regular basis. It sends inspection teams to the schools for on-the-spot assessments these days too.

The chairman of the board, Chief Fidelis Etim understands the problems and does not pretend. He told The Guardian that all the federal government needs to do, to make the UBE succeed is to muster political will and undertake a financial commitment. "We should make a commitment," he noted. "There must be a willingness, a political will, knowing that primary education is the bedrock of, and the future of any nation."
Putting the problems in a proper context, Etim said that despite sustained efforts by his board to build new structures and renovate old ones, all what had come out of that is just like a drop of water. His words: "so far, in five years, we have not done more than 10 per cent in the renovation of structures. There are still many structures that are dilapidated and need to be improved. When you take Akwa Ibom, with 1.5 million children, you need to create a good teaching/learning environment, something that will make them remember and wish to be in school. There must be materials to work with, things that would stimulate innovation. These things need commitment, and financial involvement. We must not be complacent because we have built a classroom block in one school. But you will see that just one block is not anything significant. There is still a large part of the school that is dilapidated, which needs to be rehabilitated."
For Comrade Augustine Ahpaettor, the chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) in the state, any plan about the UBE scheme that does not include the teachers will fail. Although, he acknowledged that teachers in the state were getting their salaries as and when due, he wants special attention and incentive given to teachers asked to serve in difficult areas. He also wants the federal government to stop paying lip service to education, and instead, provide massive funding
On the pivotal training scheme for UBE teachers, which some regard as a crash programme, the NUT scribe said it was inappropriate. His words: "Is anything crash better? When you crash, you are dying, isn't it? You don't train teachers like that. When you crash, na death.

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Nigeria Wins Science Medals

THISDAY (online version) Dateline: 25/10/2004 22:34:04

Nigeria won one gold, two silver and a bronze in the just concluded 2004 ESKOM Expo for young scientists competition held in University of Pretoria, South Africa.

The annual exposition for young scientists, tagged ``Eskom Expo for Young Scientists'' is organised by South Africa and 2004 competition was held at the Sport Centre in Pretoria.

According to the Coordinator of Nigeria National JETS, Dr Aderemi Adedibu, about 489 projects were presented at the exhibition out of which Nigeria had six.

Adedibu who led the young scientists to the competition, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the weekend in Abuja that Nigeria won in three out of its six presentations.

The two young scientists from Akwa Ibom State, Ekeminni Okonna and Ediddion Gabriel, both from Methodist Primary School, Ikot-Ekpene, won Gold with their presentation on production of Lawyers' wig.

Students of Baptist Academy, Obanikoro in Lagos, won Silver with their presentation on Neighbouring Security Monitoring and a silver also went to students from NVIR Staff Secondary School, Vom-Jos, with their presentation on weaving loom.

Students from Alvan Ikoku College of Education Staff School, Owerri, won bronze with their presentation on organic farming: effect of organic fertilizer.

Adedibu explained that Nigeria's contingent worked as a team and had several meetings and appraisal before their presentations.

He said the organisers had 489 projects which were based on different sub areas discipline in alphabetical order, a system which he suggested Nigeria should also adopt in future.