In this recent chat with newsmen in Yenagoa, capital of Bayelsa State, Governor Seriake Dickson sheds light on the educational development levy newly introduced by his government and the massive infrastructural development at the state-owned Niger Delta University (NDU). The excerpt.
What prompted the decision to sponsor the bill for the Education Development Trust Fund and how will this fund be managed?
These are critical bills that have been signed into law and will go a long way to consolidate the legacies that the state is making in this critical area of education. As I said on the day I was signing those bills into law, the government has spent over N50 billion building educational infrastructure. This does not include other recurrent investments in education. This is only the money spent in building infrastructure in all local government areas; some local governments have two or three and we are still going on.
There are 25 constituency boarding schools with facilities that are functional. All the contractors will soon go back to work and we are now equipping schools with beds, foams, lockers, fences like you have never seen before. The level of investment we are making in education is next to none. Indeed I doubt if there is any state in Nigeria making this kind of investment in education. We are doing all of these in a time of recession.
Today I was in NDU (Niger Delta University) to carry out ceremonies marking the disbursement of N10b of Tertiary Education Infrastructure Development Fund that I promised in my budget speech. Today, we have flagged off the construction of the senate building. NDU has operated without a befitting senate building, and that is not good enough. We have also flagged off the construction of a dualised road cutting across the length of that great university.
We have almost rounded off the investments in boarding schools; we have about 14 or 15 of them. The Ijaw National Academy has already started and we have 1000 students there. It is a secondary school but it is just like a tertiary institution, bigger than most Nigerian universities and built from the scratch. The first tree that was felled was done by this government. We did the first road there, cleared the land and everything there was designed and developed by us. Almost a hundred of the students are from other Ijaw speaking states. So when I give scholarships most people do not know I give scholarships also to the other Ijaw in other states because Bayelsa has a responsibility not only to mobilise ourselves within this state for development but also to lead the way for the rest of the Ijaw nation. Some of the deserving boys and girls from other neighbouring states are there and they will be fed for free.
This is a revolution my people. There is no government building secondary schools with boarding facilities the way we are doing and then capping it all with a compulsory boarding system; so we are going to have about seven to 10,000 compulsory boarding students fed by the state, clothed by the state, taken care of by the state. There are medical facilities in the schools, laboratories, libraries built to standard. For the Ijaw National Academy, the first principal I have appointed is a British citizen, a distinguished Cambridge University graduate.
There is a major revolution going on that has to be supported and funded. The only thing we want parents and guardians to do is when your child gets admission into any of these boarding schools, you only buy those little items that they write down like bucket, cutlass, dormitory wears and so on. The government will now take care of the intellectual moulding of that child and we are training all round citizens. We want new Bayelsans that can come and fly as high as they can and get ready to conquer and dominate their environment in the future. That is the charge I have given to them. For all of these, a lot of money is needed and government has already made the initial investment.
In the next few months when the first batch of fifteen schools has started, I will be awarding contracts again for the boarding secondary schools at the constituency level. Once we finish it we will proudly beat our chest and say yes we have the best boarding facilities in this country. The most lasting investment we can make, where you can never go wrong is the investment in the human mind and that is the foundation I have been laying. When I took over this state, we had the unfortunate situation where in 2012 we did not have a single boarding school. For me that was criminal neglect and that explains why in some local governments across the state we have kidnappers and militants, criminals and cultists because the young people have not been given the opportunities to discover their potentials and to contribute meaningfully to the society.
Now we have to break that cycle of criminality and unemployability, poverty and disease and ignorance where people have lost the capacity to even analyze what they hear. It is so bad that you are building a road to someone’s community and they will say “na road we go chop?”. The only weapon to fight this is investment in education. That is why we have come up with these two laws: the Education Development Trust Fund is to guarantee sustainability of the policies and programmes that the restoration government that I am leading has put in place in education.
Thus from now on, by the end of this month, funds will come into that account to support the free feeding, free uniforms that we have embarked upon. We have now created an institution that will be managing that and it will take little contributions from every Bayelsan, some as little as N400, others N500 and by the way in a year it comes to N6000 or less. There are others that will have to pay N1000 depending on the grade for those in the public service. It is better for all of us to pull these little resources to fund mass education.
How would the contributory pattern for the education development levy be?
In this state we have some educated people but the judgement I have made over time for the five years I have been here is that we are yet to get that critical mass of highly skilled and developed minds and unless the society has that, we cannot develop. This education trust fund is not to be contributed by only people in the public service. I have said all my appointees will even pay the highest. I am going to be the highest contributor, my contribution will be N100,000 every month, The deputy governor will be contributing N50,000 monthly, the speaker that is seated here will contribute N30,000, commissioners and house of assembly members, SAs, judges and Chief Judge will contribute N25,000 each. This is a compulsory levy for education.
The future of this state has to be protected and it is something that everybody will come together and contribute to. Now all those of you who do business in this state will have to pay a particular percentage of your profit as education levy. Anybody doing a government contract from now has to be prepared to pay that and I have directed that a minimum of 5 percent of the IGR of this state will also go into that fund. Now if we do this, you will see that with the foundation we have established, this state will continue to be number one. Those states that are doing well are states that the leaders took this type of decisions. Several decades ago, their own people paid the sacrifice we are making now. Let it not be said that any Bayelsan is saying no to this levy. Anybody opposed to this will be considered by me as an enemy of this state but I will engage with everybody on this issue to clear any doubts and misconceptions.
The second bill is to establish the Tertiary Education Loan Board. We are creating a special board to be able to give scholarships to indigent students in tertiary institutions particularly in the Niger Delta University and all over the world. What government will do to help young people acquire education is to provide loans and make it easy for them to obtain a loan so that a brilliant child who does not have the means would not drop out of school. We have opened up a challenge for all the young people. If you have admission in Niger Delta University, just go and register in the scholarship board and get it. The scholarship will be set up very soon and I will put seasoned educationists that we trust their judgement to manage it and I have directed that 5 percent of the IGR of this state will be dedicated to that fund. It will be fully funded by the government of Bayelsa state.
We are also working with NDU to make sure fees are paid. You will borrow and if for instance what you need for tuition is N100,000 per session, and your degree programme is 5 years which means the government will give you a loan of N500,000 and we have trained a graduate. We will restructure your repayment for 10-15 years. Experts will work it out so that every month, there is something you pay so that we create a revolving system and so that when you pay others will also benefit from it. I call for understanding, collaboration for the education tax fund, the trust fund. Everybody will pay including those who run away from Bayelsa, who stay in Lagos and pay tax to Lagos State government, stay in Port Harcourt and pay tax, stay in Abuja and pay tax to Abuja authorities.
What are the plans for sustainability?
Education is the only way through which you can change a society in a positive manner. The country has moved on for so many years and left our people behind; so people in Bayelsa are actually victims of neglect by the Federal Government and by their leaders over time. I have already appointed a very seasoned educationist, someone that is up there among the first 20 names you call in education in Nigeria and beyond the shores of Nigeria. I have spoken with Prof. T.T Isoun, and he has graciously offered to serve once again even at his age. I thank him and express gratitude on behalf of the government and good people of the state. He has the knowledge, experience, passion, dedication, understands the issues and the role education can play as a tool for turning around the Ijaw nation.
With his experience and background and integrity, and above all else it has been my honour to appoint him, I have since sent his name to the House of Assembly to chair the education trust fund. I am consulting and before the end of next week I will be making other appointments in that very important board because they are going to be managing a lot of money. By our calculation, the education trust fund will receive between N100m to N250m every month. That is just the beginning. With time, every private citizen, all taxable citizens must pay, even if it is N100 or N200. Very soon for every public servant, for you to access the hospitals we are building, for your children to have enrolment in schools, we will ask for your receipt. The only receipt we will ask for in this state for every official thing is education trust fund receipt because now we are in the period of emergency. I believe it will be so for a number of years until we get out of it. Whoever the next governor will be will decide the next line of action. I have made a determination that this is the right way to go.
Who is eligible to access this loan? What are the modalities for accessing the Higher Education Students Loan Scheme and are there specified penalties for defaulters, especially corporate organizations and private individuals?
Every adult taxable person in Bayelsa is liable to pay the education development levy beginning with me the governor down the line to the least positioned public officer. We are starting from the public service to the private sector. Anybody who has a shop in Bayelsa or is running a taxi, must pay this levy; nobody is exempted. If you are selling in a shop in the market, you must pay. It may be as low as N100 monthly but you must pay it so that everybody will have a sense of ownership.
This levy is not to build schools, we have already made investments. It will be used to sustain this revolutionary intervention in education which is the free and compulsory boarding system. We are selecting all the best boys and girls from all the primary schools to start secondary schools. We are also selecting all the best boys and girls from secondary schools.
In the next few weeks, I will be mobilising about N2.5b to be used for the completion of the construction of the 25 constituency secondary schools, all boarding. When these boarding schools are finished, we will turn attention to the equipment. Every month we will spend a minimum of N500m for several months buying beds, lockers, foams, equipping kitchens etc, the sort of things government was doing back in those days which is why we are who we are. We are going back to those days. If you go to Kiama Grammar School you will be shocked what you have there. If you go to the school in Ekeremor you will be shocked what you have there. Brass, the same thing and so on. In Southern Ijaw they have even three. We have started the one in Okubie and I have directed the construction of another one in Opuama because that is a vast local government but children do not go to school. They look up to their role models who are carrying AK 47.That life has to stop.
If we must have a future as a people, that life must stop. If others did not see that I, Dickson who belong to the people and who have come from the people see it. My parents were poor people. I did not go to top schools in Lagos or Abuja or Port Harcourt. I schooled in my village, in my local government and so I want the poor people who have the same background like my parents and their children who have the same background like me to have access to good education. With what I have done, I am giving them the opportunities that children of the elite have. Quality education is the best thing we can leave for children not these big houses people steal money to build or the big cars and hotels civil servants will be stealing money to build. With the team we have set up, Prof. Isoun is not the type that will come and mismanage our money and that is why we are carefully selecting people that will manage this fund.
For the past two years our students have done incredibly well in the national essay competition. That should tell you that when we give opportunities to these children they will get to the moon. That is what I want to multiply not by giving scholarship to send people out of Bayelsa. We have built the facilities and are still building, I want Bayelsa to have the best schools in this country, I want Bayelsa to have the best public health care facilities. It has already started happening. We never had a functional hospital in Kiama, none in Sagbama, Ekeremor, Ogbia, Oporoma. But all that has changed. As I am talking to you, all the health facilities are in place.
In Ogbia, construction is on-going. I have directed that additional funds be given to the contractor before the end of April. I want to see that hospital in Ogbia completed because all others are completed. You have the Diagnostics Centre which is one of the best in this country. People now leave Abuja, Lagos to do their diagnostics here. The specialist hospital by the government is one of the best; all facilities you have in London and America are here. We are also introducing the health insurance scheme which everybody will subscribe to, particularly people in the public service.
Looking at the educational loan to students in the state, will the state government employ them into the state civil service after their studies?
Of course, there can be no guaranteed employment, but I assure you that very soon there will be many employment opportunities announced in the state service because of the ongoing reforms. The preliminary report I have indicate that there are very many people who ought not to be in the public service that are there. There are people who are 75 years of age and are still going to work, presenting age declaration saying they are 40 years. We are collating all of that and it is happening at the local government level in the state. Very soon we will thank those people who ought not to be there and say take the back seat, we now want to employ your son or your grandchild.
At the end of this re-organization, there will be a lot of room for employment. But there will be no guarantee for those who will benefit from the loan. The loan is just to enable you go to school and graduate but once you graduate, if you take your study seriously and earn your degree, you will have a job to do. We are coming up with a number of projects that will enable our young people to employ themselves and others. I have told my team to work on the Bayelsa State young entrepreneurship programme. We are going to select a number of them to give some seed capital support to start. I am very impressed with what some of them have already shown capacity to do.
First go and acquire the education, particularly in NDU. If funding is your problem, you come the board will listen to you but because you are a scholarship student, you benefit from this loan. You have to do well also; that is your own part of the bargain and the school will recommend to us that you are a student and you are doing well. We do not want to give loan to a man who will spend 8 years doing a 4-year course. We want someone that can take the loan, graduate in four years, start work and begin to pay back gradually. That is what they do in America and UK. So take advantage of it. If your parents can sponsor you do not come and apply for the loan because you will be depleting the fund to support poor students who like me, when I was in the university, had to work night duty as a police constable and later police corporal. And I did full time LLB and graduated top of my class by the grace of God.