Bayelsans are One-No discrimination!

Beauty in the midst of diversity

I have always wondered why 2 communities that live close by and have intermarried and existed interdependently from time immemorial become enemies at war. This has been the case in many countries in Africa and internationally. In Bayelsa, the Basambiri and Ogolomabiri communities in Nembe Local Government Area have been fighting non-stop. These communities are next to each other, and have been living together for many years. All of a sudden, the fights commenced and their  respective members cannot stand one another, to the extent they destroyed the bridge linking the communities.

We hate them,  destroy the bridge!

Some people say they are fighting for the position of "the communitiy that is the real Nembe". Some say the desire to hold the "most beneficial" government electoral and appointee positions is the reason behind the fight. Whatever the real reason, it is sad when people of the same family turn against each other so destructively. The CDA STARS team visited Nembe local government this week and I got a picture of this sad story. The Government through this CDA STARS project, amongst others, is taking steps to show that we are all Bayelsans regardless of community membership, as can been seen from the CDA STARS selection process. Members of these 2 warring communities need to follow suit and the Government needs to intensify reconciliation efforts between these communities to prevent the war from escalating and expanding to the smaller communities in the local government area.

Is my child's name on the list?

The CDA STARS team has visited 6 of the 8 local government areas in Bayelsa State. 3 schools in each local government area were selected by CDA partners-Columbia University and New Amercian Foundation-based on the Junior Secondary Scool (J.S.S.) Examination result in 2008 and 2009. Schools with results in various subjects that added to an average of above 70% were selected, they were 24 in number. The list of J.S.S 2 (year 8) students in these schools were fed into a computer software that selected the names of the participating students in the CDA STARS program. 1,000 students from the 24 schools were slected. This is how I have had to break it down to the students and their parents to explain why not all the J.S.S 2 students in some schools are part of the project and detonate any rumours of discrimination in this project. This has been a sticky issue, indeed. In one school, the parent was certain the principal of the school did not submit his son's name on the full list of the students that was fed into the computer because if he had, the computer would have chosen his son's name, for sure! I had to politely deny his request to see the full list of all the students in the J.S.S 2 class that the principal submitted to our project office. All parents have agreed that the selection process has ensured transparency in the project and they praise His Excellency, the Governor of Bayelsa State, for insisting we take this route to picking the CDA STARS . 

We salute you, Sir!

In Nembe local Government, we visisted B.J.S.S Ogolomabiri and Agrisaba. In Ogolomabiri, only 50 of the 60 students were slelected to participate in the project and the parents sent a message to His Excellency to expand the project to all the J.S.S2 students. In Agrisaba, there were only 9 students in J.S.S 2 class and all the students are CDA STARS. A new point arose in Ogolomabiri, when one of the parents questioned the N100,000 ceiling imposed by the government on the amount of funds saved in the individual CDA STARS account to be matched by the government over a period of 3 months. The parent, a fisherman said that during 3 months, it is possible for him to save over N100,000 in the account, as fishermen do have high financial periods. The government put the N100,000 ceiling to discourage parents from conniving to deposit high sums just to get the government to match these sums which they will try to withdraw for their personal use and not the use of the students (although the fact that no money can be withdrawn from the account until the CDA STAR student graduates from secondary school and has evidence of the next step in his education- except the student has a proven medical emergency prior to graudation- will deter such fraudulent palns). Since the project focuses on students in public schools who have low income earning parents, N100,000 seemed like a practical ceiling for these accounts. It was a surprise to hear the parent say he can save more than that sum in 3 months, meaning he would have made a lot more than that, having regard to excluded living expenses. Fishing is clearly a business to explore in Bayelsa State, imagine the returns if this parent were operating large scale fishing!

Fishermen clean out too, you know!

Bayelsans are certainly on the same boat

One good effect the project clearly has on parents and students is the desire to save to grab the Government's matching reward. Where the parents and their kids do save in these accounts, the project will be deemed successful and the saving culture would have been imbibed by these set of Bayelsa's youth and even their parents. The Government will then be ready to spread the project to all Bayelsan children, regardless of community membership or class. We are all Bayelsans, Basambiri and Ogolomabiri should stop the division.