Feature/OPED
The Imperatives of Turning Agbor College of Education to University of Education
By Jerome-Mario Utomi
The recent commissioning of a multi-billion naira Teachers’ Professional Development Centre by the Delta State Government at Owa Alero/Owa Oyibu in Ika Northeast Local Government Area of the state, a centre where, according to the state government, teachers in the state will be trained on efficiency in presentation/course evaluation and record-keeping strategies, is a welcome development.
There are reasons that support this affirmation.
Apart from the fact that education is the bedrock of development coupled with the fact that presently, the most valuable skill any nation can sell to the globe is knowledge, the single most important factor in determining how fast the state and of course our children can achieve hyper-modern status today’s world is no longer a function of where they are from or who their parents are or how much they have.
But to use the words of Barack Obama, former President of the United States of America, it is who their teacher is. It is the person who will brave some of the most difficult schools, the most challenging children, and accept the most meagre compensation simply to give someone a chance to succeed.
However, there are reasons to argue that for the state to leave behind third world challenges of illiteracy and poverty, and become a successful centre for the dissemination and distribution of best human capital resources across the nation, its handlers must urgently depart leisurely approaches to policies/reforms that cure the effect of an ailment while leaving the root cause to thrive, of which the Teachers’ Professional Development Centre could without bias, be likened to.
Without prejudice, Teachers’ Professional Development Centre is laudable but not well thought out. If training and retraining of the manpower’s need in the state’s education sector in ways that will boost quality education of our children is the state government’s goal, we need to be holistic in approach.
As it calls for a re-examination of and taking a critical look at the process that throws up our teachers. The only possible solution to the current need is the transformation of one of the long-existing Colleges of Education in the state-the College of Education, Agbor, (the same vicinity with the Teachers’ Professional Development Centre), to a specialised University of Education to perform this role at the most fundamental level.
This suggestion and demand are by no means without a precedent.
On January 29, 2005, the Ogun state government, South-West Nigeria, under the administration of Otunba Gbenga Daniel, going by records, upgraded the state-owned College of Education established in 1978 to Tai Solarin University of Education.
Apart from being the first of its kind in Nigeria, the university also shares a unique feature as the only institution in the country that offers both the Bachelor’s degree programmes in education (B.Ed.) and trains National Certificate of Education (NCE) graduates within the same academic environment.
Without doubt, this is precisely the role Agbor College of Education will perform if upgraded. It will, regardless of what others may say, give big helping hands and act as a compelling referral to existing education faculties of universities in the region.
Similar to the factors advanced for establishing the first university of education mentioned above, the present demand is primarily predicated in meeting the challenges of contemporary university crisis particularly as industry watchers has observed that there is a poor performance of first and second-year students in the universities with a high proportion of them having several courses to repeat at the end of the first year in the university.
This, they added, is traceable to poor understanding of those subjects by these fresh students from the high schools and poor delivery of the subjects by the teachers, who themselves do not possess the required skill. This in turn was due in part to the quality of teachers produced from several faculties of education from Nigerian universities.
If permitted, the Agbor University of Education will in ways help provide an opportunity for Deltans seeking degree certificate in education achieve such goals, ensure graduate teachers have in-depth knowledge of the subject they are supposed to teach like any other university graduate from other faculties and at the same time have teaching skills to disseminate the knowledge of subject known.
Also fuelling this demand is the fact that the Nigerian university curriculum as argued elsewhere is deficient in producing graduates that could work on their own or provide jobs for others after leaving the university.
The major areas of deficiency in the university curriculum are vocational skills and entrepreneurship knowledge. If upgraded, it is expected to incorporate these in order to turn out graduates that are not only knowledgeable in the subject matter of their discipline but well-rounded with a vocational skill and have entrepreneurship knowledge to make- maximum use of the resources around him or her to be self-dependent on leaving the university.
At this point, it is important to attain the concerns of some commentators.
As observed, many have opined that such effort remains unnecessary as the National University Commission (NUC) has accredited all the courses in the degree programme of the College of Education, Agbor. Others were of the view that the college is already affiliated to Delta State University, Abraka coupled with the fact that the distance between Abraka is too close to necessitating another university.
These arguments in the opinion of this piece cannot hold water when faced with embarrassing facts.
Beginning with the argument about the proximity between the two institutions’, the Tai Solarin College of Education (TASCE), again, provides a comparative example. For those that know, the distance between Ago Iwoye, a community that houses the Olabisi Onabanjo University (the state-owned university) and Ijagun, Ijebu Ode, the TASCE permanent site, is even closer when compared with the distance between Abraka, the Delta State University Main Campus and Agbor, a town in Ika South Local Government Area.
Away from proximity to the claim on affiliations and NUC’s accreditation of courses run by the Agbor College of Education, statistics factually shows that the Tai Solarin College of Education (TASCE) at the time of transformation to a university of education had students and staff statistics of about 12,544 both NCE. and degree (full time and part-time) with a staff strength of about 669 of which 43 per cent were teaching staff in all the eight schools in the college.
The college was affiliated to the University of Ibadan, Oyo State for the B.Ed programme and also worked out an affiliation arrangement with Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba – Akoko, Ondo State for a programme leading to the award of B.Sc./B.Tech, including a postgraduate diploma in education. The qualification status of the lecturers revealed that there were 14 or 3.9 per cent with PhD.
Yet, despite these ‘virtues and attributes, the state leadership saw the wisdom in making it an independent university of education.
Let us not forget, the nation Nigeria has in the past had specialised universities such as University of Agriculture and Technology. The reasons for establishing such specialised institutions were to promote science, technology and agriculture in the country, likewise, the Agbor University of Education when approved will fortify teachers’ training.
More importantly, it will address permanently the tertiary institution imbalance spread in the state. Take as an illustration, in the Delta Central Senatorial District alone, the following higher institutions could be found. They include in no particular order; the main campus of the Delta State University in Abraka with another campus in Oghara, Federal University of Petroleum Resources (Warri), Maritime University, Okerenkoko, Gbaramatu Kingdom, College of Education, Warri. Such cannot be said of other senatorial zones.
Jerome-Mario Utomi is the Programme Coordinator (Media and Public Policy), Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA), Lagos. He could be reached via [email protected]/08032725374.
By Dr Austin Orette
The grandiosity of Nigerians when they discuss events and situations can be very funny. If the leaders use this kind of creativity in proffering solutions, we may be able to solve some of the problems that plague Nigeria perennially.
There seems to be a sublime affectation for new lingos when the system is being set to punish Nigerians. It is a kind of Orwellian speak.
Recently, there was no electricity throughout the country. The usual culprit and government spoke; people came out to tell us the power failure was due to the collapse of the National grid. Does it really matter what is collapsing? This is just an attempt by some government bureaucrats to sound intelligent.
Intelligence is becoming a borrowed commodity from the IMF or World Bank. What does it mean when you tell Nigerians that the national grid collapsed? Is that supposed to be a reassurance, or it is said to give the assurance that they know something about the anemic electricity, and we should get used to the darkness. This is a language that is vague and beckons the consumer to stop complaining. Does that statement mean anything to Nigerians who pay bills and don’t see the electricity they paid for? If they see it, it comes with an irregular voltage that destroys their newly purchased appliances. Just tell or stay quiet like in the past.
Telling us that a grid collapse is a lie. We have no national grid. Do these people know how silly their language sounds? Nigeria produces less than 10,000 megawatts of electricity for a population of 200 million people. How do you permutate this to give constant electricity to 200 million people? It is an insult to call this low output a national grid. What is so national about using a generator to supply electricity to 200 million people? It is simple mathematics. If you calculate this to the minute, it should not surprise you that every Nigerian will receive electricity for the duration of the blink of an eye. They are paying for total darkness, and someone is telling them they have an electricity grid.
If you can call the 10,000-megawatt national grid collapsed, it means you don’t have the mind set to solve the electricity problem in Nigeria.
To put it in perspective is to understand the basic fact that the electrical output of Nigeria is pre-industrial. Without acknowledging this fact, we will never find solutions as every mediocre will come and confuse Nigeria with lingos that make them sound important.
It is very shameful for those in the know to always use grandiose language to obfuscate the real issues.
South Africa with a population of sixty million produces about 200,000 megawatts of electricity daily. Nigeria produces less than 10,000 megawatts. Why South Africa makes it easy to lift the poor from poverty, Nigeria is trying to tax the poor into poverty.
The architects of the new tax plan saw the poor as rich because they could afford a generator.
A non-existent subsidy was removed, and the price of fuel went through the roof. Now the government says they are rich. What will they get in return for this tax extraction? Why do successive Nigerian governments always think the best way to develop Nigeria is to slap the poor into poverty? What are the avenues for upward mobility when youth corps members are suddenly seen as rich taxpayers? Do these people know how difficult it is to start a business in Nigeria?
After all the rigmarole from Abuja to my village, I cannot get a government certificate without a-shake down from government bureaucrats and area boys. The government that is so unfriendly to business wants to tax my non-existing businesses. Are these people in their right state of mind? Why do they think that taxing the poor is their best revenue plan? A plan like this can only come from a group of people who have no inkling of what Nigerians are going through. People can’t eat and the government is asking them to share their meager rations with potbellied people in Abuja.
Teach the people how to fish, then you can share in their harvest. If an individual does what the government is doing to Nigerians, it will be called robbery, and the individual will be in prison. When the government taxes people, there is a reciprocal exchange. What is being done in Nigeria does not represent fair exchange.
Nigerians have never gotten anything good from their government except individual wealth that is doled out in Abuja for the selected few.
The question is, will Nigerians have a good electricity supply? NO. Will they have security of persons and properties? No. Will they have improved health care? NO. Will there be good roads? No. Will they have good schools and good education? No.
Taxation is not good governance. A policy like this should never be rushed without adequate studies. Once again, our legislators have let us down. They have never shown the people the reason they were elected and to be re-elected. They are not playing their roles as the watchdog and representatives of the people. Anyone who voted for this tax bill deserves to lose their positions as Senators and Members of the House of Representatives.
We are not in a military regime anymore. Nigerians must start learning how to exercise their franchise. This taxation issue must be litigated at the ballot box. The members of the National Assembly have shown by their assent that they don’t represent the people.
In a normal democracy, taxation without representation should never be tolerated. They must be voted out of office. We have a responsibility and duty to use our voting power to fight unjust laws. Taxation without representation is unjust. Those voted into power will never respect the citizens until the citizens learn to punish errant politicians by voting them out of office. This responsibility is sacred and must be exercised with diligence.
Dr Austin Orette writes from Houston, Texas
For many Nigerian families, GOtv has become more than a television service. It is part of the daily routine. It is what people unwind with after a long day, what keeps children entertained on quiet weekend mornings, and what brings households together during football matches, movie nights, and festive celebrations. Over the years, GOtv has blended naturally into these everyday moments, shaping the way Nigerians enjoy entertainment at home.
Here are some of the reasons GOtv continues to stand out.
1. Local Content That Feels Like Home
Nigerians love stories that reflect their lives, and GOtv delivers this consistently. With Africa Magic, ROK, and other local channels, viewers enjoy Nollywood movies, relatable dramas, reality shows, and lifestyle programming that speak their language. These are familiar faces, familiar stories, and familiar experiences. GOtv understands the value of cultural connection and continues to invest in the content viewers care about.
2. Affordable Packages That Work for Real Families
GOtv has built its reputation on affordability. With packages designed for different budgets, families can enjoy quality entertainment without financial pressure. Some of the affordable packages on GOtv include GOtv Jinja, GOtv Jolli, GOtv Max, GOtv Supa, GOtv Supa Plus. This balance of good content at a comfortable price is a major reason GOtv remains a trusted household name across Nigeria.
3. A Channel Lineup That Has Something for Everyone
The beauty of GOtv is its range. Children enjoy their cartoons and animated shows, parents relax with movies and telenovelas, sports lovers stay connected to live games and highlights, and music and lifestyle channels keep the energy lively. Whether it is catching up on the news, finding something light after work, or choosing a family movie for the weekend, GOtv fits naturally into everyday Nigerian life.
4. Programming That Matches Our Daily Rhythm
GOtv understands the way Nigerians watch television. Weeknights come with easy to follow entertainment, weekends offer longer movies and marathons, and festive seasons arrive with special programming that brings everyone together. The schedule is practical, familiar, and aligned with the pace of Nigerian homes.
5. Easy Access Across the Country
From major cities to smaller communities, GOtv remains reliable and easy to use. Installation is straightforward, navigation is simple for both adults and children, and the service works seamlessly across the country. Even when life gets busy, GOtv makes it easy to stay connected, subscribers can pay and reconnect instantly without long processes or penalties, picking up right where they left off.
With relatable content, pocket-friendly pricing, and a channel lineup built around real Nigerian lifestyles, GOtv has earned its place in homes across the country. As the entertainment landscape evolves, GOtv continues to grow with its viewers, shaping how Nigerians watch, share, and enjoy moments together every day.
Chairman of the National Tax Policy Implementation Committee (NTPIC), Mr Joseph Tegbe, has enumerated the benefits of the Nigerian Tax Reform Acts 2025, stating they mark a significant turning point in the country’s pursuit of a robust and sustainable economy.
In an article published in several national publications, Mr Tegbe said the tax laws were a comprehensive overhaul of the country’s fiscal architecture, aimed at creating a modern, efficient, and transparent tax system that supports economic growth, development, and prosperity for all Nigerians.
The NTPIC chair, who is also the Director-General of the Nigeria-China Strategic Partnership (NCSP), affirmed that the new tax laws are built around four key pillars: reconnecting the economy to the state, standardising and modernising fiscal administration, promoting predictability, and re-balancing the fiscal social contract.
“By broadening the tax net, simplifying rules, and improving administration, we are creating a more predictable fiscal environment that supports businesses and households,” he explained.
He cited global best practices that informed the reforms like South Korea, Singapore, and Rwanda, where tax reforms have driven economic growth and development.
“These countries have shown that with the right policies, institutions, and leadership, it is possible to transform a nation’s economy and improve the lives of its citizens,” he said.
According to him, the tax reform will protect low-income earners and small businesses, with measures such as zero tax rates for those earning up to N800,000 and the expansion of zero-rated VAT items for critical sectors, including healthcare, education, and agriculture.
“By taking away the tax burden on small income earners and small businesses, the reforms aim to preserve livelihoods, encourage formal participation, and allow enterprises to grow organically. We recognise that these sectors are critical to our nation’s development, and we are committed to supporting them,” he noted.
The Acts also emphasise digitalisation and technology-driven tax administration, with the introduction of e-invoicing to improve compliance, transparency, and reduce administrative burdens, a significant step towards modernising the tax system and making it more efficient, he posited.
Consequently, he emphasised that the success of the reform depends on careful implementation, necessitating ongoing engagement with stakeholders to ensure proper understanding.
The implementation of the tax Act is expected to stabilise the fiscal environment, support production, protect critical sectors, and modernise tax administration in line with global standards, adding it will also enhance Nigeria’s ease of doing business, attract foreign investment, and generate employment opportunities.
“We are confident that these reforms will unlock new opportunities for businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs, and contribute to the growth and development of our economy,” he added.
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