Governors from the Southeast have abstained from Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State’s regional conference on human capital development.
The governors of Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo sent delegates to the two-day conference in Awka, the Anambra State capital, with the theme “changing the narrative – towards entrenching human capital development in the Southeast of Nigeria.”
Soludo decried the lack of cohesion among the Southeast’s leaders, saying it was damaging to the region’s economy. He asked for the establishment of a regional education board to create a curriculum for the area.
According to Soludo, the Southeast might band together and establish a teacher certification institute to accredit teachers for use in the region’s schools in response to the proposals and policy documents presented by technocrats during the conference.
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Soludo who described the conference as “pivotal to who we are” said that the governors of the region may adopt them in the areas of education, labour, and health to increase human capital.
He insisted that Anambra had the smallest land mass in the nation and the fewest natural resources, and that the Southeast could not afford to fall behind in the development of human capital.
“Your recommendations are excellent. I will read them with keen interest and see which of them we can take.
“We have little land mass in the Southeast. We are actually the smallest with Lagos State, but while Lagos is reclaiming land from the sea, we are losing our land to gully erosion.
“Anambra is the world’s gully erosion capital. In the Southeast, we are landlocked, and we have the least mineral resources. Our only boost is human capital.
“Human capital naturally is our only dependable resource. It has been so yesterday and today and will remain so tomorrow.
“And if we do not mind about human resources, then we are going nowhere. We must work on that.
“I listened to your recommendations on education, but who said the Southeast cannot set up a regional education board to fashion out a curriculum for students in the region?
“Must we always use what others are using? Who knows, you may fashion out a curriculum that will attract the interest of other people, and the world at large.
“The various governments of the Southeast can come together and set up a teacher certification institute to certify teachers for schools in the region too.”
Soludo bemoaned the fact that in the past some governments in the Southeast had sent some workers home because they weren’t citizens of their state. He further stated that Anambra has changed its policy.
“We just recruited 5,000 teachers in Anambra State, but I told the ministry not to accept if I recommend anybody to them. We employed people from every state.
“All I need is for the best teachers to be employed. Our children deserve the best teachers, and all they hope to get is the very best, no matter where the teachers come from.
“In my own eyes, I don’t see those boundaries and for the greatness of Nigeria, we must not see those boundaries,” he said.
