18042019 - PRESIDENTIAL TUSSLE:I always beat you in every election, Buhari tells Atiku

Life after insurgency
IWAS in Maiduguri on a routine
visit when by happenstance I
watched on the local television a
harvest of exotic tomatoes in a
greenhouse farm in Njimtilo - a
settlement just before Auno, the
nearest major village to Maiduguri
on the Damaturu road. What struck
me was both the size of the
greenhouse as well as the tomatoes
that were being harvested. The
greenhouse farms I have so far seen,
particularly those dotted in the
suburbs of Abuja, were much smaller
than the Njimtilo one and the size of
the tomatoes harvested were the ones
you only see in those highbrow
outlets in Abuja and Lagos. I became
curious.
My curiosity was further
heightened when I realised that it was
Borno State deputy governor,
Usman Mamman Durkwa, who was
leading the harvest. I wondered why
I have never noticed the structures
whenever I drove into Maiduguri.
Probably, I missed seeing the
imposing structures because they
were adjacent to one of the last
security checkpoints into Maiduguri
and at that end of the stressful journey
one was always eager to get over and
done with it. One wouldn’t be in the
best frame of mind to scan the bushes.
Nevertheless, I resolved to pay a visit.
I found out that the greenhouse
farm is actually the hub, the nucleus,
of a number of related industries that
had been in the works for quite some
time. When I visited the first time I
was privileged to be taken around
by Ibrahim Ali, a Special Adviser of
Borno State governor and
coordinator of the entire project. I
have known Ibrahim Ali as a wellrounded
public figure who had been
a member of the House of
Representatives in the Second
Republic, and thereafter an elected
chairman of Maiduguri
Metropolitan Council, a Minister of
State, Petroleum Resources and MD,
Federal Housing Authority. A US
trained engineer, Ibrahim Ali has
also been known to have a deep and
abiding interest in agriculture. A few
days later when I visited again it was
Abatcha Jarawa, also an engineer,
who was also involved in setting up
the net house who took me around.
The Njimtilo green house, one of
the largest in Africa under a
retractable roof net house, covers an
area estimated at over 5.3 hectares.
When I was ushered into the
greenhouse the first impression I had
was how cool it was at that time when
it was already about noon. The end
of March temperature outside was
already climbing up into three digits.
But I learnt that, that was the beauty
of the retractable roof net house. It
has a cooling effect on the grounds
and crops cultivated under its
canopy enjoy increased quality
production. There were other crops
under cultivation but it was the
ripening, brilliantly reddishcoloured
tomato fruits that caught
attention under a translucent light.
The tomato fruits were rampant on
ridges after ridges, as far as one’s eyes
could see. What a sight to behold! I
was just wowed!
Ali told me that the intention of
setting up the greenhouse was to
reposition the state through means
of agriculture as part of the state
government’s response to the
destruction of the citizens means of
livelihood by the Boko Haram
terrorists. It is all part of the grand
vision of Governor Kashim
Shettima to use agriculture to fight
poverty and end insurgency. Himself
an agricultural economist and a
banker, Shettima would rightly be
viewed as one of the most
experienced public servants in the
state government having served as
commissioner in the key ministries
of finance, local government and
education, before being elected as
governor.
There is an
immediate need to set
up a formal structure to
get the industries to the
next level of their selfsustenance
and their
ultimate use to the
community
As soon as he became governor he
went after his vision earnestly making
wide consultations across the
country among stakeholders in the
agriculture sector. He humbly
knocked on many doors to gather
ideas on what to do. Audu Ogeh now
Minister of Agriculture was his ally
and Honorary Special Adviser and
they collaborated on many of the
interventions in agriculture to
enhance farmer support services,
encourage agricultural
mechanisation, processing and
farmer entrepreneurial skills.
Governor Settima’s harrowing
experience in administering a state
besieged and traumatised by
insurgents, probably underlines his
Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2019 —17
17
empathy for the citizens and
prepared him to harness all the
resources of the state to give the
greatest good to the greatest number
in the state.
What is remarkable about the
greenhouse is the range of industries
in the hub that form a complete
agriculture-based value chain. There
is a paste and juice industry for
tomatoes, mangoes, oranges and the
like; a dehydration plant for onions,
pepper and related vegetables; a
garri processing plant; a corn chips
and cake baking industry; and a
bottled water industry. Other
prominent industries include the
solar panels industry and the PVC
pipe factory.
The solar panel factory is said to
be the largest in Africa and will
annually be producing 40
megawatts worth of panels with a
capacity of 300 watts each. The PVC
pipe factory that is also set to take
off will be producing all types of
pipes, conduit, water hose and drips,
and will target as its market the
small and large-scale irrigation
farmers, municipal water suppliers,
boreholes drillers, etc. It is said that
though there are a number of PVC
pipes industries in the country, the
one I saw in Njimtilo is the most
comprehensive because as Ali
explained, it is the only one operating
six lines of production.
What is more remarkable about
these industries is that they were
bought directly from their
manufacturers in transactions that
cut off second and third party
meddlesomeness. And as the
factories arrived Maiduguri, it was
the local engineers and technicians
assembled from University of
Maiduguri, Ramat Polytechnic and
like institutions that successfully
unpacked and set them for testing. I
did not come across a single foreign
technician in the premises.
I had the privilege to further
confirm that when I went back a few
days later to spend a whole day in
the premises. That day the last of the
factories - the juice extracting one -
was in the process of being
assembled for testing. I watched how
Ali and his colleagues, Umar
Zubairu and Chris Wakawa, all
engineers, supervised the
installation. Over endless cups of tea
with the hot April winds swirling
around us I kept probing them
whenever I caught their attention on
the present predicament of the
project as well as its sustainability.
The only problem the project faced
at that time was to do with supply of
electricity. The whole project was still
on generators which were expensive
to maintain. This is despite the fact
that the supply and distribution of
electricity in Maiduguri and
environs had improved
tremendously. But they remain
hopeful that in the next few days the
project will hook on to the 133 KVA
line for a more efficient and cheaper
supply of electricity. The other
question that nags the mind is where
does this range of massive
investments go from here? It is
evident that by the close involvement
of local engineers and technicians
some lessons had been learnt from
the failures of many such enterprises
established with the best of
intentions. At least now the intricate
know-how of all the industries is
within the immediate grasp of the
locals. But as I saw it, there is an
immediate need to set up a formal
structure to get the industries to the
next level of their self-sustenance and
their ultimate use to the community.
Other questions that beg for
answers include the control of the
industries and the farm itself. Will
the government continue to run them
or will it allow a partnership with
the private sector or even completely
withdraw and allow a full takeover
by private hands? I guess Governor
Shettima must be mulling over these
nagging questions affecting this
paramount legacy before handing
over in the next few weeks. I am
confident we will get the answers
soon. Keep a date with this page.
Tackling maths phobia among students through competitions
By Olumide Bajulaiye
MANY students claim not to like
mathematics. But for some, the
issue with maths is more than simply
disliking algebra or fractions. For some
students, maths anxiety impacts them by
affecting their working memory,
disrupted by math anxiety in both
elementary and secondary school students.
This can lead students with math anxiety
to be as much as half a school year behind
their peers. Even for students who don’t
struggle with maths anxiety, it’s important
to develop positive study habits that will
help them as the subject becomes more
complex.
Research has confirmed that maths
anxiety is linked to poor performance, and
can make teaching the subject a daily
struggle. So, how can teachers help
students overcome their fear? How can
they instil a love for a subject that so many
students find intimidating? The 16th
Annual National Mathematics
Competition, ANMC, organised by the
Nigeria Tulip International Colleges,
NTIC and the National Mathematical
Centre, Abuja held last week, aimed at
rewarding hard work for pupils who really
devoted much time to surmount the
phobia, which their peers associate with
mathematics.
According to the managing director of
NTIC, Sabri Unal, who is also a
mathematics teacher himself, even with
almost 40,000 participants in 2019, the
school hopes to increase the number of
contestants in the coming years. “We are
helping to remove the maths phobia
among primary school pupils especially
and being one of the key subjects to
anything in the world, one needs to be
successful in mathematics.
“For the students, they should trust
themselves, concentrate on what they are
doing and rediscover the power they really
have in themselves to be abreast with
whatever life brings along in the future.
It’s no surprise that confidence is a huge
factor in students’ anxiety towards
mathematics. Previous negative
experiences with the subject can lead to a
negative and defeatist attitude. To
overcome this, you should provide
students with regular confidence-building
exercises that look challenging but enable
all students to do well. This boost in
confidence and self-efficacy can decrease
anxiety and fear, as students feel more and
more capable and motivated,” Unal said.
According to him, the competition is
organised in four zones. “What has
happened here today is the same way
NTIC is organising in three other
locations - Kaduna, Lagos and Ogun. And,
there are other students whom we are also
giving different percentages of
scholarships, though they are not
mentioned here.”
Unal disclosed that for 16 years, NTIC
has been promoting effective teaching and
learning of maths at the primary level and
developing greater capacity through its
Annual National Mathematics
Competition. “The main reason for the
competition was to deal with the phobia
for mathematics among our children
because maths is the foundation for
anything you want to do or be in life and
the competition has helped in achieving
this objective,” he said.
During the ceremony, the top three
positions were awarded with full tuition
plus cash prizes that ranged from
N100,000 to N300,000. Their
mathematics teachers were not left out as
they too received cash prices up to
N200,000. The first position went to Ejezie
T. Euzebius from Mount Olive School,
Anambra State, while the second and third
positions were taken by Jessica James
from Pleroma International School, Port
Harcourt and Tamunodumotein Sekibo
from Tender Year Preparatory School,
Abuja, respectively.
The coordinator of the exam, Mr. Yerkin
Shaimerdenov, disclosed that since the
inception of the competition in 2003,
171,631 pupils across Nigeria had
participated in it and NTIC had offered
100 per cent scholarship that covers
tuition plus hostel fee for six years
(throughout secondary school) to 180
outstanding students who had participated
in the competition.”
The first prize winner, Euzebius, who
Mathematics is the core of
any academic endeavour that
one wishes to embark on and
this made management decide
that there is need to organise
this kind of competition
was full of happiness and fulfillment, said
that what helped him was that he read his
books and stayed up in the night with the
help of his mother.
Mr. Anoli Theophilus, his mathematics
teacher said: “I feel very excited that our
efforts in the final analysis yielded fruit.
For more than a year now, we have been
grooming him. The boy is a very smart
person and has confidence in himself; he
will always take things seriously as he is
disciplined. Education without character
is not complete. There is this component
of discipline and character that plays a
very big role in making one learn.”
For Dr. Steve Dele Oluwaniyi, who
represented the national director of the
National Mathematical Centre, Abuja,
the annual national mathematics
competition is a very laudable project and
is worth emulating and improving upon.
“NTIC has been doing a lot towards
improving the teaching and learning of
mathematics in Nigeria right from the
basic level to the Olympiad. We have
almost 40,000 candidates participating
in the competition this year and the
preparation of the questions, marking and
awards were not easy.”
“Mathematics is so strategic and
fundamental that there is nothing one can
achieve either organisationally or
individually without putting a premium
on the study of mathematics,” he said.
In his response, Muazu Omeji, Principal
of NTIC Boys Boarding Section in Abuja,
noted that as a school, the NTIC believes
that mathematics is the core of any
academic endeavour that one wishes to
embark on and this made management
decide that there is need to organise this
kind of competition.
He said: “As it is now, the competition is
held nationwide. One of the benefits of
the competition is that because of the kind
of grooming we give them, so many of the
students have won scholarships to study
in universities, both locally and
internationally.”
Aniekan Ekpo, a mathematics teacher
from Cross River State, said: “It has been
an annual competition for us since 2003.
Students sit for the exams in various states
and before, there used to be three slots for
states but now, it has been increased to
five. The best five students from the states
are invited to come to Abuja, then we chose
the best 12 who are individually given
prices.”
•Bajulaiye, a social analyst wrote from Abuja
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