…Residents lament
By: Felix Ikpotor
It does appear that the Rivers State Government may have turned a blind eye towards educational development in Bane Town in Khana Local Government Area of the state.
Bane is the home town of late renowned writer/ environmental rights activists, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Hon. Gregory Nwidam ( Commissioner, Rivers State Local Government Service Commission), Hon. Charles Befil Nwile (Former Deputy Speaker, Rivers State House of Assembly) and other bigwigs both in politics and the academia.
This is even as residents of the community have lamented the total abandonment of government owned schools in the community.
A concerned indigene of the community, Justin Bariwerelo Nwikue in a social media post decried the dwindling educational standard of the community due to the sorry state of the two government owned primary schools viz Community Primary School 1 and 2 Bane.
He alleged that at the moment, the two schools are left with only two teachers each to take care of pupils from elementary one to six due to retirement of teachers, adding that those posted there have refused to accept their postings.
He lamented that: “If you visit those schools when they are in session, you will weep for those children over what they are going through. Government has refused to send more teachers to the schools and the ones they posted there have refused to go. Our children are suffering and their future is at stake.”
The concerned villager whose father once taught in the school before his retirement pointed out that while other communities such as Kono Boue in the LGA has three government primaries schools and all running smoothly, expressed worry over rumours that leaders of Bane Town were planning to merge the two schools.
He recalled that during the administration of Hon. Gregory Nwidam as chairman of the council, he had influenced the transfer of teachers from the community who were in the employ of the state government back to the community to salvage the schools from dying.
Nwikue suggested that graduates from the community that have the requisite qualification to teach could be engaged as teachers to support the remaining teachers in the schools
While calling on the state government to intervene and safe the schools from further decay, he appealed to well meaning individuals from the area to use their positions to assist the schools.
Our reporter who visited the area recently reported that pupils were seen roaming around the schools compound as there was nobody to take care of them.
Meanwhile, efforts to reach the state ministry of education for reactions yielded no fruit at the time of this report.
