By Ignatius Soroibe.
The President general of Obiangwu development Union, Chief Maxwell Opara, has appealed to the Imo state Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma to use his good office to install the Eze-elect of Obiangwu Autonomous community in Ngor Okpala local Government area of Imo state.
Chief Maxwell Opara made this appeal on Thursday, 19th September, 2024 while addressing some journalists who paid him a courtesy visit in his country home Umuolulu Obiangwu, preparatory to the impending media award to be bestowed on him and other distinguished Nigerians on the 1st of October ,2024 to celebrate the 64th Independence Anniversary of Nigeria from Britain.
The P G urged the governor to give staff of office to the Eze-elect, chief Gabriel Nwosu in lieu of the high court judgment of 30th September, 2022.
He noted that the Eze-elect who is an eminent son of the community has contributed immensely to the development of the community in various areas of life be it in education, employment opportunities , community development and is also leading in advocacy for togetherness in Obiangwu and Ngor Okpala local Government area in general.
Chief Maxwell Opara ,a renowned community leader decried the neglect suffered by the community who donated land housing the sam mbakwe international cargo Airport, Owerri, stating that inspite of donating lands for building of the airport, the community is not enjoying the accompanying amenities like Electricity.
He regretted that the community has been without Electricity for the past three months and urged the state government to come to their rescue.
According to him, “The most annoying aspect of it is that there will be light at the Airport but there will be no light in the community housing the Airport”.
He wants the attention of the government to be drawn to the communities that donated the lands housing the Airport and other government projects.
In the area of employment, he pointed out that the children from the host community who are qualified are not employed at the upper echelon of the service but at the lower levels.
He said that the community has their children who has excelled in Management and in public Administration, Accounting, there are many of them according to him still not employed.
“We don’t know how employment is done in Abuja and Lagos, what we see is posting of staff he emphasized.
“We have seen a lot of Airport managers posted here both males and females,we have our children who can occupy such positions still nothing.
“We have to find out who is managing the employment of staff in that place”The PG explained that apart from the Airport, the Nigerian Air force base is located in the boundary between Obiangwu and Umuowa, according to him.
“This land was donated to the Air force by the former Governor Rochas Okorocha,We have our Children who are qualified to be engaged as Air force officers or Airmen, In short we have to find out how engagements are also done in the Air force,we have to know about it.
There should be wide publications so that our children will apply, attend interviews, there is no examination that will be conducted that our boys and girls will not excell in it.
Relating it to Oil companies, he pointed out that his daughter read Electrical and Electronic engineering and also graduated in one course in petroleum engineering for engineers, she excelled properly after attending the that course for one full year.
Eventually she was not engaged in one of the oil companies, the training she received can I call it a waste?
“Let us hope that in future another company can invite her for an engagement.
“These are the things we are looking at, our children are marginalized. I don’t want to use that word marginalization because our children are equal to the task, if it is brain work, our children will excel in any field.
Chief Maxwell Opara decried the damages done to the employment system.
“We used to have the general public service examination for employment of graduates, school certificate holders but this time around there is nothing like public service exams for engaging our children.
Continuing he said for instance, “After his school certificate examination.I took the public service examination and I excelled.
I was posted to the ministry as a statistician in training,I worked for some months before moving into the university, this is why many school certificate holders are jobless and roaming about the streets, this is the reason for this restiveness of the youths, youth restiveness, they are not engaged.
” The ministries they go through the back door to engage people, example the correctional service,the Nigerian customs service,we don’t know how they engage people,we don’t have any of our children in the customs, immigration, no not at all but they are qualified to fit in, the central bank recently, we have just gotten one ,just one slot in my village after many years,so let their be competitive examination for employment, anybody who excels in the examination should be engaged and not favouritism, as you know man,the idle mind is the devil’s workshop, so the government should stop this restiveness and banditry through youth employment.
Meanwhile the President general of Obiangwu development union has said that Obiangwu community has eight villages , distributed in three zones in three Hamlets or clans,
“We have Egbelu zone or clans or Egbelu family,made up of Umuwaoma, the head of all the villages,we have Umunehi,we have Umuchoko,three villages in Egbelu Obiangwu, then we have Ezi Obiangwu made up of Umuopara, and Eziala,we have the third section,Ekwuruazu, comprising Umuolulu,Umuekwenne and Umuene making up a total of eight villages.
Initially we used to have Umueze as a village but fortunately they are lucky to have gained autonomy so they are on their own .
we have eight villages now at the moment with time more autonomous communities will spring up from this eight villages to attract amenities for instance , Ezemba now if federal government is distributing one,one million naira per community ,Ezemba alone will enjoy one million naira, Obiangwu with eight villages will be at a very serious disadvantage by receiving one million naira,with this there is need to create more autonomous communities from Obiangwu,that is what I have suggested he explained. On the prestigious media award to given to him on the 1st of October,2024 .
He said, ” as a teacher I am very delighted,I am happy because there is a saying that the teachers rewards are in Heaven.
He implored the governor to do more for them enable them to celebrate with him now that he has returned victorious at the supreme court, pointing out that he has implicit confidence in the governor.
He is happy to be a teacher and as such has helped in producing relevant manpower to fill the necessary gaps in the society for the past 35 years starting from Orisheze secondary school where he became the youngest school principal as at that time, got the school recognised to write school certificate exams, then to Oforola secondary school where the population of the whole school was not up to sixty, the school also suffered from lack of commensurate numbers of teachers.
” The positive efforts of Mr Normans and Pa Ohuruogu greatly enhanced my achievements there.
“The director of schools also assisted me, by allowing me to engage my friends and school mates as science teachers ”
“I talked to the director, he said well, if I can talk to some of my friends, my school mates, I did and I attract ed them for Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. I had to make use of geology students from federal University of technology Owerri,FUTO then.
Oforola is close to FUTO “I got four boys from FUTO to manage the sciences with that ,the population of the school grew up,then the Eze gave a standing order, because the students from Oforola, they have all deserted the school and went to Army day secondary school,Obinze and the community secondary school, when these students came back ,i was tormented but the principals of these schools.I told them that my children, the children of Oforola have returned back to their school,therefore, did you see me in your school coming to engage your students,the students have returned,so the students came back and the population of the school exploded then we started working.
“Infact the eze OLA gave me a chieftaincy title, it was there that I got my chieftancy title from,for reviving a dead school.On the homefront, chief Maxwell Opara is happily married to lolo Regina Ulunma Opara,also a graduate,the marriage is blessed with four children, two boys and two girls, according to him.
” All of them are graduates,”I made sure I trained all of them,I am now enjoying little proceeds from them to keep me on ,he stated. He pointed out that”Non of his children took to teaching, they were all the interested in Engineering”
The happy and elated P G.continuing said that his daughter who is a medical doctor has gone for her post graduate studies in public health education.
“she will return to a teaching hospital or school of nursing, you cannot teach at any level ,our people make wrong impressions about the teaching profession ,
“they think that teachers are only ones teaching in the primary and secondary schools,University lecturers are teachers,don’t mind what they are called, they went through the profesional teachers examinations to professionalize ,if you are not a professionalised teacher ,
“you cannot teach in any higher institution be it in medical or paramedical schools, schools of nursing,school of midwifery ,many teachers are bound in many fields even in the ministry of works,there is a section for teaching,
“you engage engineers to come and teach engineering and construction works to staff already in the ministry,they are all teachers ,they engage them either from the universities to come and teach ,there are teachers in every field,
“is it in accounting, so many accountants comes to teach students in the university ,so teachers are bound in every discipline ,don’t mind people who are relegating the teaching profession because of the conditions the primary school teachers saw themselves then,not now” he emphasized.In his reaction to a question on the state of the nation, chief Maxwell Opara said that,
“The country is still evolving, noting that evolution is a continuous process,the country is still evolving since 1960 from when she got her independence until this time, she is still evolving,he pointed out that when the United states got her own independence from Britain in 1776, they managed themselves properly,he noted that if this country can manage her available resources very well, poor management is our problem.
we have not had the opportunities to have good leaders at the helm of affairs,only when we have such leaders that things will change, otherwise the country will continue to drift to the doldrums,that is my stake.
If they can bring down this petroleum price, you see petrol is the determining factor, in fact no equilibrium in the market,because of the high cost of petrol,the equilibrium in our market in this country was completely shattered,there is no equilibrium again,the workers are complaining”
Concluding he commended the house of representatives for rejecting the #890 price recommended by the N NPCL ,I doff my hat for them”why shoud N N P C L, determine the price of the Dangote refinery products”he asked.