The Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, has said Niger Delta must seriously commit resources to the education of its people in order to be able to fight for their rights.
The governor said lack of education was the reason others come to the Niger Delta to degrade the environment with impunity.
This was as his administration announced that it had offered automatic employment to 307 beneficiaries of the Bayelsa State Scholarship Scheme, who bagged doctoral and Master’s degrees in different disciplines.
Dickson’s Special Adviser, Media Relations, Mr Fidelis Soriwei, said this in a statement on Sunday, explaining that the governor held a meeting with the scholarship beneficiaries on Friday and offered automatic employment to 107 PhD holders and 200 MSc holders.
Dikson said, “We should not forget to invest in education. The reason we are where we are is because of lack of education; the reason people take away our resources with impunity is lack of education.
“The mindless degradation of our environment, the acts of impunity against our people and our environment; what I call environmental terrorism, is because of the backwardness in education.
“Those who woke up early and embraced education have taken over everywhere. This is our own way of equipping our people to be able to tackle the existential challenges facing us today.
“The cost is quite huge but no matter the cost, this is the right way to go. I don’t need to know any of you to give you the opportunity and encouragement to study abroad.
“While it is good to build roads, hospitals, edifices for the state, investment in human capacity is the most important. All the others can collapse but the investment in human capacity development will endure.
“I had the intention to send out an army of scholars across the globe but the recession stalled that plan. Several programmes, including the scheme, suffered stagnation as a result of the recession, the worst in the history of our country.
“All those who have completed their PhD and about to complete, totaling 107; the over 200 who have MSc in some core professional courses like Civil Engineering, Statistics, Pharmacy, Public Health and others and all medical doctors are hereby given automatic employment.”
He said the 107 PhD holders would be deployed to lecture in the three state-owned universities – the Niger Delta University, University of Africa and the Bayelsa Medical University.
Dickson said the state scholarship scheme which “was designed to send an army of Bayelsa scholars to universities across the globe, came with heavy sacrifice and cost to the government.”
He said though it was expensive sending scholars outside the country to acquire an education, investment in education and human capacity development was the only way to wrest the state from the clutches of underdevelopment, oppression and poverty.
Speaking on behalf of the beneficiaries, Dr Jude Cocodia, a lecturer at the Niger Delta University, commended Dickson for his bold revolution in the education sector in the state.
He said the state was already feeling the positive impacts of years of sustained investment in education especially at the NDU, which is host to a large number of the beneficiaries.
