My interest in Ebonyi state was first aroused sometime in 2006 when on the invitation of a friend I had visited Abakiliki, the capital. Then, the state was under the leadership of Dr. Sam Egwu, the governor who had employed a multi-approach to solving the problem of dearth of qualified skilled workforce, from the state.
EBONYI MIGRANTS: THE SHAME OF THE IGBO NATION
But even though this effort of his did earned him some awards from different institutions—NGOs and government—I still argued that it was still not enough. I pointed out to my friend that the rate at which kids from the state, largely with the active support of their parents, migrates to urban centres to engage in very petty trading the vending of DVDs and other minor articles under a masters-servant relationship, that neither holds nor promised any future was very alarming, as far as I could see.
I told him that the state was gradually turning out society dregs of a different variation, just like the northern states of the country known infamously for mass producing beggars, and that as an Igbo state that was not good enough not just for the image of the state but that of the entire Igbo nation. He agreed with my position but defended the governor by saying that all he was doing as at that time was all he could possibly do given the available resources. I disagreed and determinedly too. I gave the following reasons for differing with him:
As an Igbo state, I stated that it already had a structure which the government could take advantage of: the town unions. This union is very prominent amongst the Igbos living outside the eastern states, as a way of collectively defending their interest and socializing. I stated that if the government was driven enough it could summon the leadership of these unions—those from Ebonyi state— nationwide for a meeting at the Government house, all expense to be paid for by the government. To be present at that meeting, I suggested all elected and appointed officials at all levels of government, from the state. The purpose of the meeting was to be one: to enlighten all and sundry about the danger posed by this ugly trend and thereafter incorporate the leadership of the unions in the effort to totally eradicate it.
Their task was to go back to their respective domains and set up task forces to go out into the street and mop up these kids on behalf of the government of the state. Thereafter they were to have them enrolled into boarding schools within their respective catchment areas as demarcated by their home state government. Again the entire cost for this—the welfare of the kids including schooling— was to be borne by the state government. This is what free and compulsory education in modern terms should entail—seek and find, where ever. As for abuse, I told him that it would not come from those implementing the programs outside the state—they would prove to be too patriotic to even think about abuse—but from government officials in charge of the program, operating from the state. As for funding, part of that would come from the recurrent expenditures of the state as the program if well sold, would compel civil servants and political appointees to sacrifice a part of their legal and not so legal earnings to save their state from collapse in the near future. For the other part, I said that some of the bricks and mortar projects would have to be abandoned for the time being since human capital ought to have a top drawer priority.
Apart from the town union strategy; I acknowledged that the fundamental problem was the worsening poverty situation that most of the parents involved in this child abuse do find themselves. I reasoned that since the state is an agrarian one, it could adopt the Saraki option in Kwara state: inviting some of the displaced farmers from Zimbabwe to come find work for their hands in the state. After all, it is a state that was known for rice production commercially, in the past. The farmers could come in and industrialize or mechanise it production process and absolve some of these parents as staff.
This would improve dramatically their living conditions as they would be force to imbibe some new habit and even develop a better world view. I told him that this was not to be treated as one of the programs of government but as a special one with a state of emergency placed on its head.
I equally stated that a state as backward as Ebonyi should not have any industry within its territory unopened for any reason. I made it clear that the controversy about who buys and on what condition, the Nkalagu Cement Plant should not have arisen, at all. The government I told him must find a way round the issues and on time so that the plant could come back to production as the state and not the investor was actually the one losing in the needless brouhaha. All politics surrounding it privatization must be arrested and now! That is, as at when the encounter took place.
Some years down the line and very recently, I decided to test for the state distribution of those involved in this petty business and to my greatest surprise, all with the exception of none so far asked about his state of origin, answered that they were from Ebonyi and from a particular local government area. your Excellencies, you must a way of becoming excellent in human capital development otherwise you would have done nothing lasting, at the end of your reign.
The living environment from where these kids wake up every morning belongs to the cave era of civilization. Even the concentration camp of the Hitler’s Germany seems like a five star condominium; and it is from such that they scatter each morning into the four corners of the earth to trek as far as their legs could carry them, all in their bid to eke out a living for, first, their masters then, self and finally parents back home.