What The Papers Say
Welcome back to campus, students
Peoples Daily Graphic (Ghana)
OUR THREE universities have announced separate reopening dates. In fact Cape Coast University re-opens today.As the students return to campus, however, there are a few matters which must be kept in mind.An advertisement placed in the newspapers by the Registrar of the University of Cape Coast advised students to bring with them lanterns and buckets. The University of Ghana has also issued a release asking students to bring lanterns, soup plates and cutlery with them.
We have reasons to believe that some selfless and hard working officials in the universities' administrations are doing their best within the confines of the economic situation to make conditions tolerable for the returning students.
In spite of these efforts, it is probable that students will return to find that there are not, for example, enough mattresses to go round. In extreme cases, some may even have to use blankets for mattresses. The "Graphic" calls on students, parents and the public to keep these things in mind as students return to campus, for over a long period of time the infrastructural needs of the universities have not been met.
We urge the students not to find excuses for confrontational demonstrations in these inadequacies. Rather their efforts, along with the rest of the university community should go into finding ways of making things better.
Also, without seeming precocious, we would suggest to those among the academic staff who are wont to sit in the Senior Common Rooms and Whine about the lack of this and that, that it would be a much more worthwhile pastime to be up and doing something to improve things.
Searching for identity
The Punch (Nigeria)
Operating under the seventh regime in the twenty fourth year of independence, the Nigerian nation is yet to emerge with a pattern of beliefs and concepts which will explain her complex social phenomena.Her past leaders have been unable to give and sustain lasting answers to the questions: What is Nigeria? Where is she going?
We had three general elections with each succeeding one proving that we have imbibed the negative type of democracy. This has brought shame to the entire nation. Three national census have been conducted and the nation is yet to know its number. That, in itself, is a bad omen; for we shall continue to project whatever we do on false premises.
Blaming our misfortune on the inbuilt contradiction of the colonial warlords is no longer tenable. The fact is that our past leaders were not mentally prepared for the post they assumed.
We have seen changes in the country's leadership but objectives together with those strategies and tactics to achieve them have remained the same. Programmes lacked durability, evident clarity, sustained energy and mass education because of their dubious and protean nature.
The socio-political growth of Nigeria cannot continue to accommodate indirection any longer if we are to move away from where we were before. For life to be meaningful, it must be aimed at a target.
To identify and co-ordinate values of the Nigerian society in a bid to give her uniformity and sharp identification is the very task before the Buhari administration. This organisation called Nigeria now requires sustained decisions to maintain her shape and status. Randomised reactions to issues will only place the nation in a shifting stratum in the assemblage of nations. It is either we choose a direction to follow or wallow in duplicity and thrive in vain promises and indecisions. This much needed direction will guide individuals and the nation will then measure up to the wanted wholesome growth. Its absence will continue to aid the scarcity of honesty, dedication and patriotism which are now rare commodities in our public life.
Nigeria is not destined to remain a sprawling American and allied market. But the only way to resuscitate production and national efforts hitherto committed to the dustbin is a defined pattern of living.
