By joshua 
Rt. Hon. Oligbi-Edeko’s Value-Adding Representation: A Validation For Girl-Child Education
COMMENTARY
The argument for girl-child education has been raging for long and, unfortunately, it has not been bedded. Ours has been a man’s world and over the ages, men have dominated governance, written our history, determined what is culture and decreed mores and traditions. Women were kept in the background. This was even more so in our African
societies.
Over time, with the coming of European explorers and missionaries to these parts, Western education gradually seeped into African societies. Arabic/Islamic education had similarly permeated from the Arab countries into Northern Nigeria. The focus was on men. Not through the machinations of the missionaries who brought foreign education along, but through the choices made by men who chose to send, firstly, their weaker male children to school and keep the strong at home for farm work. The females were kept at home for marriage and procreation and
domestic toil.
But though time has changed, a lot of men still display that attitude that tilts the preference of which child to educate towards the male child. In Esanland today, though thousands of female children are in schools and higher institutions, when a choice is to be made between a girl and boy as to who to send to school due to pecuniary limitations, you can be sure that the boy-child inevitably carries the day! Some men still feel when you educate a girl-child, you are doing so for the future husband and his family. They fail to see the glaring win-win situation that has become commonplace for centuries.
Right Honourable Maria Omonzele Oligbi has come to exemplify the benefits accruable from girl-child education in Esanland. She is currently the member representing Esan North East Constituency II in the Edo State House of Assembly and she won that seat after serving as a Commissioner. Her music has been nice and her people of Uromi have voluntarily played it twice. Without a sound education it is unarguable that she could have qualified for, contested and won that election that validated her acceptance by her people.
In the last couple of weeks, Rt. Hon. Maria Oligbi-Edeko has commissioned a number of projects in her constituency in Uromi. These projects, when reviewed in terms of relevance and future impact on the lives of the people, clearly tell the story of someone who had her thinking cap on in making the choices of which projects to execute. Stories of white elephant projects abound in our polity. Similarly, there are sad tales of elected officials who choose to make their own pockets their constituency! This honourable member of the house, like Honourable Odi Okojie that removed the humiliation of thirty years dilapidated General Hospital Road, has been different!
The fencing of Ebhoiyi Demonstration School and Idumengenlan Primary School to provide a secure learning environment in this era of rampant kidnapping, ritual killings and banditry is a welcome development. It also boosts the aesthetics of the school environment as well as eradicates encroachment by land grabbers. She did the same at Idumangue Primary School where a community leader, Mr. Inegbedion, praised her for helping ensure a secure environment for the community’s children who learn in the school. She is currently executing the same fence project at her alma mater, the renowned Our Lady of Loudres Girls Grammar, Uromi.
I was informed of several other projects she has executed or that are in progress: Uzea Cottage Clinic in collaboration with the World Bank, Olinlin Primary School perimeter fencing, on-going Health Centre at Ebhojie, medical outreach to several towns and villages in collaboration with ISTH. She has also placed several seniors on health insurance across the constituency.
Honourable Maria Oligbi Edeko has also supported the Esan Mobile Police Barracks project just completed through the effort of concerned Uromi/Esan sons and daughters. Of the three senatorial districts in Edo State, only Edo Central does not have a mobile police presence and the ones in Edo North and Edo South were built by the government. But it has taken the sweat of our people to get the barracks and offices built. It is just as well that the IGP has finally approved and named Mopol Squadron 82 for Uromi to help give Esanland the armed muscle to deal with the insecurity nightmare that our people have been facing.
Of all the projects that this intellectually sound and people-centred representative has executed, the police station built and just handed over to the Polytechnic called Institute of Construction Technology and Management (ICTM) at Amedokhian, Uromi is most heart-warming. It would be most impactful. Fully built and furnished to very high standard, this facility is located inside the beautiful campus at Amedokhian along Uromi–Ugboha Road. At the inauguration, General Cecil Esekhaigbe, who represented the State Governor, pointed out the very high-quality standard of the holding cells. The lovely lady responded that the standard was driven by what she saw during her study abroad.
The first Rector of that institution, Prof. Sunday Onohaebi, had done so well by way of infrastructural development and academic faculty capacity building that it overtook its contemporaries. But security concerns were always a huge problem. Herdsmen had shot dead one undergraduate going to AAU near that campus some years ago. An incidence of kidnapping also happened in the campus, and the kidnappers disappeared into the luxuriant vegetation that surrounds the beautiful campus. Amedokhian, the host community, has also featured frequently in stories of kidnapping and bandit activities in recent times. The same applies to the serene neighbouring community of Ugboha.
The location of this police facility was not only well thought-out, it was a crying critical imperative that the federal government, owners of the institution and the police, was yet to respond to. Rt. Hon. Maria Oligbi-Edeko has come, not only to the rescue of the students and teachers of that Polytechnic, but to the security succour of Amedokhian axis of Uromi as well as Ugboha Community.
With the planned re-opening of the police post we built at Amedokhian through a self-help effort as a full-fledged divisional police station as well as Mopol Squadron 82 a mere twenty minutes away, our security situation will soon be ameliorated. Provided the officers focus on the real job of securing the people, their farmlands and businesses. The people want to go to farm again without fear.
It is not surprising that Right Honourable Oligbi-Edeko has won several awards including a significant one for gender inclusion. That a well-educated girl-child can bring development to her community and family is self-evident in the milestone achievements of this our brilliant daughter who dared to delve into shark-infested Nigerian politics. She was Deputy Speaker until recently when shifting sands made her relinquishing of the position imperative. Before then, she had been discharging her duties as number two officer of the house very effectively.
While I sing her praises publicly here and thank her for her acclaimed impactful service to the community that gave Rt. Hon. Oligbi-Edeko their trust, I also want to appeal that we continue to give the female folk a chance. In education, leadership, politics, entrepreneurship and other spheres of life. A community that shuts out its female population is going to war with half its strength and will struggle to come out victorious!
Austin Isikhuemen writes from Edo Central Senatorial District.