By; SANI ALIYU, Zaria
The Emir of Argungu, Alhaji Sama’ila Muhammad Mera has commended Zaria Education Development Association (ZEDA) for doggedness and consistency in ensuring that its fundamental objectives are sustained.
He made the commendation at the 30th anniversary celebration of the association, held at the ABU Hostel in Kongo Campus, Zaria.
Emir Muhammad Mera said the contributions of everyone in this endeavor as act of charity and will continue to attract blessings to ZEDA, Zazzau Emirate and Nigeria in general.
According to him, education is a very big enterprise that cannot be left in the hands of government alone to deliver qualitatively.
He said the education sector is today bedeviled by lack of functional and acute shortage of virtually everything except students..
This development he said, necessitated the establishment of community participation to complement government’s efforts through establishing and owning schools, provision of different educational input in public schools because it is the only hope of the children of the majority of the people in their communities.
” Failure to invest for the benefit of this majority is a recipe for hopelessness, chaos and misery not only for those at the receiving end of the failure, but also for the few children of the well-to-do that were able to attend privately owned and well equipped schools from within and outside our nation.
“Traditional institution as represented by emirs and chiefs of Northern Nigeria were the first to realize the role of modern education in the development of their domains and the region’s backwardness compared to Southern Nigeria in accepting Western Education,” he said.
The Argungu monarch said, most of the renowned universities all over the world were borne out of efforts like what ZEDA Is doing and therefore, “we should not relent in the efforts that build and strengthen these interventions.”
He called on political leaders to summon courage and stop flowing with the tide and do what is really necessary to change the present narratives in many sectors of Nigeria’s national development.
“Quality education is not possible without a quality teacher and infrastructure, the bold and courageous stand of Governor Nasir el-Rufa’i of Kaduna State on this subject though mischievously maligned and misrepresented, is truly one of the first steps necessary to change the fortunes of education in Nigeria as a whole,” he pointed out.
The emir warned that, “the increasing number of half baked graduates we churn out annually may turn out to be far more dangerous for the future of this nation than the 13 million children out of school”.
In his remarks, the Grand Patron of the association, Emir of Zazzau, Malam Ahmed Nuhu Bamalli commended ZEDA executive members for the tremendous successes recorded within the last three decades.
He said their concern is not only to consolidate these successes, but also to bring on board many educational development programmes and ideas that will bring long and short term benefits to youth development and poverty reduction in Zazzau Emirate and its environs.
Emir Bamalli who expressed his deep sorrow and regrets over the recent eight months ASUU strike that seriously affected university education, therefore, called for immediate lasting solutions to ensure that the problem does not occur in the future.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Chairman Central Working Committee of ZEDA, Dr. Abdul Alimi Bello said the association is salvaging the society from socio-economic rampages since its inception.
Dr. Alimi Bello said, they have recorded a lot of achievements on educational infrastructure for training and manpower development of their youth over three decades of their existence.
