Anglican bishops task govt on education

Bishops of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) under the leadership of the Primate of all Nigeria, Most Rev. Peter Jasper Akinola, has urged the Federal Government to check the decay in the educational sector.

In a statement issued by Akinola at the end of a one-week bishops' retreat, which was attended by 148 bishops at Ibru Centre, Agbarha-Otor, Delta State, the House of Bishops also called on Federal Ministry of Education, the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to investigate and immediately redress the hijack of due process in the appointment of a vice-chancellor for the Ahmadu Bello University.

"If merit is sacrificed in such a citadel of learning with no hope for justice and fairplay, then our educational institutions are in great danger of losing their hard-earned autonomy," they said.

Attention was also drawn to the unprecedented decline in educational standards disclosed by West African Examinations Council (WAEC), crashing to an all time low of 9.5 per cent in order to meet basic educational requirements. They asked the Federal Government to return mission schools to their owners.

They also called the attention of the government to fuel scarcity and demanded that refineries be fixed.

"The nation is still battling with power contrary to the promise of the Federal Government to generate additional 6,000 megawatts by the end of 2009; the deplorable condition of our major highways are of concern as we continue to record accidents. We support the presidential initiative in offering amnesty to the militants in the Niger Delta area and we are disturbed by the wave of insecurity in the nation and cases of kidnappings and the shame the attempted bombing of an American plane by a Nigerian brought to the nation during Christmas celebration called for concern," they said.

Meanwhile, the General Overseer of Wordbase Assembly, Lagos, Dr. Humphrey Erumaka, has said there is need to review Nigeria's membership of Islamic organisations in the wake of the inclusion of the country on a terror watch list by the United States.

Erumaka, who spoke to journalists midway into the on-going 14-day Festival of Power Crusade organised by the church in Okota, said that constitutionally Nigeria is a secular state, but by its actions, the Federal Government was portraying it as an Islamic country.

According to the cleric, recent events and pronouncements of some officials and those close to the government have reinforced the need to take another look at the country's membership of such organisations, as the secular status of the country was gradually being eroded.

Describing as unfortunate the inclusion of Nigeria on the list of terrorist nations, he however, contend that the ordeal of Nigerians travelling to the U.S. or other countries was nothing new, adding that the failed attempt by 23 year-old Farouk Abdulmutallab to bomb an American airliner on December 25, 2009 only heightened the situation.

"It is not something too exceptional because some of us that have been travelling over the years have noticed that they have always treated us the way they treat people from Afghanistan and the rest of the Arab nations. They have this understanding that Nigeria is an Islamic state. Ninety per cent of the countries on that terror list are Islamic states. But Nigeria is a secular state.

"It now behoves our government to let the whole world know that Nigeria is not an Islamic state for us to be facing this level of harassment. All this meddling with central Islamic organisations makes the world to see Nigeria as an Islamic state."