Bob MajiriOghene EtemikuSpecial Reports

Edo State: When Center For Community Development Fails The People Due To Abandonment

Special Report By Bob Majiri-Oghene Etemiku

Affiliated to the University of Benin, Benin City, the CCD offers a 2-Year Diploma program in Community Development Programs. Terms of that affiliation include provision of part-time lecturers and moderation of the Center’s Examinations and Results. The Two-Year program is designed to give opportunity to civil servants & government workers to develop themselves in the area of Community, Youth, Sports, Community Relations, Military and Para-Military Services. Young school leavers like Salami who are desirous of continuing their education to the University degree level also have the opportunity of admission to read courses in Education, Social Science including Public Administration, Law, etc. Upon graduation from the Centre, they may gain admission to Nigerian and foreign universities with their Diploma. In recent times however, this institution appears abandoned. When our reporter visited the school, students lived in unkempt hostels with thick bushes crawling into the hostels.

After Ose Salami, 19, wrote the last JAMB exam and scored only 200 out of 400 marks, he decided it was time to take a break from writing JAMB.

Even though his preferred course would have been engineering, he had heard that a two-year diploma course at the Centre for Community Development, CCD, in Benin City could help him secure direct entry to study Economics or any social science course in the university.

Most of his mates who had scored lower marks than him already secured admission with influence from their parents. However, his father put his foot down and refused to use any connections to help him secure admission to university.

Ose then decided to visit the Centre for Community Development, CCD in the Government Reservation Area (GRA), behind the popular vegetable market off the Airport Road.

According to him, he went there on a Monday at 10am. At a door that had ‘Director’ written on it, Oseiwe knocked several times but there was no response. There were no students on the premises either. However, as he turned to leave, he espied some students in an adjacent building and approached them.

“I wanted to leave at first after meeting them but because I was anxious to complete my inquiries and give my father feedback, I decided to talk with them,” Oseiwe said.

According to him, students at the Centre often paid N30, 000 as school fees, together with a N10, 000.00-hostel accommodation fee per academic session. For a fresher like him, the students told him that he would pick up an admission form for N4, 000.00 and pay an acceptance fee of N5, 000.00.

Information available at the website of the centre indicates that the Center for Community Development Education, Benin City, was established by state Edict 11 of 1986 for the purpose of training middle level workers for the state.

Affiliated to the University of Benin, Benin City, the CCD offers a 2-Year Diploma program in Community Development Programs. Terms of that affiliation include provision of part-time lecturers and moderation of the Center’s Examinations and Results.

The Two-Year program is designed to give opportunity to civil servants & government workers to develop themselves in the area of Community, Youth, Sports, Community Relations, Military and Para-Military Services.

Young school leavers like Salami who are desirous of continuing their education to the University degree level also have the opportunity of admission to read courses in Education, Social Science including Public Administration, Law, etc. Upon graduation from the Centre, they may gain admission to Nigerian and foreign universities with their Diploma.

In recent times however, this institution appears abandoned. When our reporter visited the school, students lived in unkempt hostels with thick bushes crawling into the hostels.

A surreal scene, it is extremely difficult to come to terms with the reality that the students – males and females – actually live on that premises in a millennium that the UN has designated to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs 1-17.

The toilets, rooms and general surrounding is an epidemic waiting to happen if students continue to live  and study there. Louvres, classroom seats and the fans are all in one state or the other of wear and tear. At the male ‘hostels’, students erected a makeshift stone tripod in the middle of the room for cooking.

The iron beds, akin to what obtained in very remote village secondary schools in the late 70s are all in one awful state or the other. “We pay N10, 000.00 (ten thousand naira) every year for accommodations to the authorities,” one of the male students told our reporter. 

Residents within the environ who spoke to our reporter on condition of anonymity said that on Monday mornings, used condoms litter the place and criminal elements sometimes use the premises as a hideout or to cool their heels.

Information on the walls of some of the dilapidated classes indicates that SUG 2017/2018 Session carried out the sparse painting done in the classes.  On reaching a Mr Goodluck, erstwhile University of Benin Student Union Government Finance Director, he categorically denied any knowledge of fees paid for hostel accommodation by students.

“I have no recollection of the UNIBEN SUG collecting monies from students of the Community Development Centre, and neither are we responsible for the maintenance of the welfare of the students in that institution,” he said.  

Further investigations by Alltimepost.com also reveal that students pay their fees to the Edo state government and that the Commissioner for local government Affairs supervises the institute.

The state stands to benefit from giving the abandoned CCD some attention but that does not seem to be happening. The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), and the International office on Migration (IOM), say that Edo state has the highest number of illegal migrants seeking green pastures abroad.

A fully developed CCD in Benin City has the potential to stem the tide of young people leaving in droves abroad to be sold as slaves. With the recent establishment of the Migrant Resource Centre, MRC, by the Edo state government and the IOM, there was some assurance that Edo youth would benefit from developing required skills to make them useful to their community.

Yet that is uncertain. The Edo MRC only takes care of safety of potential migrants rather than community development programs. Development Centers around the world are catalysts for citizen and grassroots participation, mobilization and positive change.

After finishing his law degree, former US President, Barack Obama, became a well-known community leader after he rejected job offers to very prestigious law firms but enlisted in community development activities like youth mobilization, elderly citizen volunteer programs and literary programs in the US.

Secretary to the Edo State government, Barr. Osarodion Ogie, who had earlier scheduled an appointment with our reporter, was unavailable to shed light on the state of the CCD. He was said to be away on a political rally.

The director of the CCD told Alltimepost.com that even though the government is aware of the condition of the CCD, the hallmark of community development is not when government takes responsibility for everything.

“We are challenging old students of this institution to come together to lend a hand to their alma mater. Most of them are highly placed people in society today and I do not see anything wrong if they get together to contribute to revamp the condition of the female hostels for example,” the CCD director said.

Bob MajiriOghene is the founder of Bob MajiriOghene Communicationsan investigative and environment journalism agency and publishers of Pathwaysfor Development Communicators.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MPZS3V5  +2348156171133, +2349092194428  majirioghene@yahoo.com

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