While Secondary school students protest in Port Harcourt, Gov. Wike donates 500M to his former benefactor's University.
BusinessDay online sources report that Governor Nyesom Wike donated the huge sum to the newly established university owned by his strong supporters during his governorship tussles in 2015 and 2016, Dr. Peter and Justice Mary Odili.
PAMO is Peter and Mary Odili, and it began as a private hospital in Port Harcourt years ago. Mary, the wife of the then governor, established TAP, The Adolescent Project at Iriebe, Obio/Akpor local council area of the state close to Eleme Junction, as a pet project believed to be backed by the state government. Now, the facility has been turned into a university.
The Rivers State government under Wike now wants to partner private investors to promote tertiary education starting with Odili’s PAMO University of Medical Sciences.
The governor thus announced a grant of N500 million for the newly established Pamo University of Medical Sciences, saying it is to support the development of the school and its students.
Declaring open the commencement of Pamo University during the installation of the chancellor, Governor Wike said the state needed more private universities.
The governor said to consummate the partnership with Pamo University, the state would sponsor 100 students annually for the next five years.
He said the state established the College of Medical Sciences at the Rivers State University because of its commitment to training qualified medical doctors.
He said the people of Rivers State would benefit from the establishment of the university because of the increased opportunities for them to study medicine.
He said: “We will sign a memorandum of understanding with the university for the state government to sponsor 100 students annually for five years.”
He commended the former Rivers State governor, Peter Odili, for breaking the ground by investing in the setting up of the university in the state.
He said the government and people of Rivers were excited over the establishment of the school because it would lead to the training of more qualified medical doctors.
Chancellor of Pamo University of Medical Sciences and former head of state, Abdulsalam Abubakar, said it was a privilege for him to serve in enhancing the training of more medical doctors.
On his part, Odili said the idea of the university was initiated after a chance meeting with the executive secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Abubakar Rasheed, who suggested that he should contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the area of medical sciences.
Meanwhile only last Thursday, students of Rivers State Comprehensive Secondary School, Olanada in Rumuola area of Port Harcourt staged a protest to register their grievances over unavailability of teachers in their schools.
The school pupils also complained that the State Government under Governor Nyesom Wike has abandoned Public Education
One of the pupils who spoke in a video shared online said, “We have not had teachers for a long time. Only Youth corpers have been coming to teach us. We have been learning in only two classrooms."
https://youtu.be/nduqaOGVGhs
“We are almost writing WAEC but nobody has been teaching us. We have not done practical. We don’t have laboratories. The government is not doing anything,” he lamented.
Reacting to the development, a famous Port Harcourt social media activist, Comrade Achinike Ogbonda expressed disappointment as to why the Governor would choose to donate a whopping 500M naira while the State tertiary institution was in shambles and lacking of basic amenities. He also challenged the governor to enumerate his achievements in education in comparison to how much that had been spent.
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