Taraba Nursing College observes week-long commemoration for Late Suntai over dilapidation | Tellwell Newspaper
Tellwell Newspaper, Abuja – Nigeria:
From Godwin Agia, Jalingo
Lecturers and staff of Taraba state college of nursing and midwifery have commenced a one-week commemoration in honour of late former governor Danbaba Danfulani Suntai to lament their deplorable conditions and the continuous decay of the institution.
The lecturers and staff who spoke to Tellwell Newspaper said the week-long mourning was to enable them pray for divine intervention in the school’s deplorable situation, considering the late governor’s vision to breed high class health practitioners in the state was gradually fading away.
They bemoaned the sorry state of the school, which they said was hampering quality teaching to mould students into the best healthcare givers late Suntai had envisaged.
Suntai died from injuries sustained in
a plane crash five years ago while he was governor.
“Our decision to embark on one week mourning and prayers in honour of late Suntai is to plead with God to answer our prayers and intervene in the school’s deplorable situation,” said a management staff of the school who pleaded not to be identified for fear of sanction.
“This school was built by late governor Suntai and we feel that since the school is not in the right condition, we should pray to God to intervene in the situation,” said the school official
The decaying structures were meant to have been laboratories, lecture halls, staff quarters and other administrative offices.
The management staff wondered why the college has suffered so much neglect despite the humongous allocations budgeted for education by the state government.
“In 2020 the sum of 11.02 billion naira was allocated to education sector in the state, and in other budgets presented by governor Darius Ishaku education has always been top in the sharing, but we wonder why the state college of nursing and midwifery is still suffering this neglect,” the school official said.
A lecturer of the college pointed out that the college was not conventional school but a specialized institution where students were expected to be imparted the best teaching and services required to make them excellent health professionals.
“This condition has made our school to remain behind the standards required for colleges of nursing and midwifery in the country,” the lecturer said.
According to him, lack of lecture halls and other “technical logistics” in the institution is hindering accreditation of many courses, a situation that is stagnating progress of the college in meeting Suntai’s desire to produce quality health personnel in the state.
The lack of decent staff accommodation made lecturers to resort to renting houses outside the school, with the attendant transport and fuel costs, which affect their productivity.
“We pray the present government does what is required for the school and if it doesn’t, we hope the next government will make the people of Taraba proud by changing the narrative to safeguard the health of the citizens,” the lecturer said.
When contacted by Tellwell, Taraba state Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Edward Baraya said he was not authorized to grant interview to any media organization.
He explained that he had to get directive from either the chief of staff to the governor or the secretary to the state government (SSG) before granting any interview to journalists.
