The renewed attention of Sunday Karimi on education, by Tunde Ollusunle

It is the “medium term” evaluation period by the politicians and public officers of Nigeria inaugurated in the four -year offices, as stipulated by the Nigerian Constitution as stated in 1999 in 1999. The first quarter of every checker, every four years, which is usually the regular electoral season when all the presidential, national and state elections are. A medium -term revision in our electoral circumstances therefore refers to the elections held in the season established in 2023. During the continuous evolution of the 26 years of Nigeria, the judicial judgment in controversial government surveys in selected states, they precipitated “out of cycle” elections in eight states. These are: Anambra, Bayelsa, Edo Ekiti, Imo, Kogi, Ondo and Osun. The trend is more noticed in the south of Nigeria where seven states are involved.

Thursday 29 May 2025, the Nigerians were awakened by the broadcast of President Bola Tinubu. He highlighted the results of his administration in the “first half” of his four-year mandate, 2023-2025. Even the governors of 28 states who were equally elected during the programmed cycle window of national surveys in 2023, also have cats of calculation sheets in front of their voters. The senators and members of the House of Representatives were not left behind in the responsibility of the management. The eyes of their people, whose ears have been informed of the volume of the resources made available by the State, triggered renewed expectations in the provision of services, throughout the ground. They therefore want to listen to the mouths of their ambassadors in the Bicameral National Parliament.

I regularly interrogated the efforts of federal legislators, including some of the state of Kogi. In fact, the senators Enyinnaya Abarbe and Austin Akobundu, both of the State of Abia, present among my topics, in the same way as Leke Abejide and Dickson Tarkighir, members representing Yagba and Makurdi/Guma Federal Compostutpens in Kogi and Benue. I come from Kogi, the “Confluence State” in which the two largest rivers of Nigeria, Niger and Benue are joined. I therefore have a residual knowledge of the state. Developments throughout the state, my senatorial district and my federal electoral college, are of primary importance for me. Here I should note that my post – National Youth Service Corps, (NYSC) working life has started as a school teacher in a primordial rural community, * Ponyan, * in my area of ​​the local government, Yagba East, within my current federal college. During my career in journalism, I was remembered on several occasions, to make use of my state, the state of Kogi, of my experiences.

I had the privilege of serving in the administrations of Prince Abubakar Audu, (of evergreen memory); Colonel Paul Omeruo and Colonel Bzigu Apakirya, (which, unfortunately, is no longer with us). I made a tour of Kogi State, severely and in series, around with my various garrisons. Each new CEO wanted rapid knowledge with its people to filter their challenges and needs. This was usually in order to provide rapid and spontaneous repairs, which could be provided or performed within the limits of the resources available at the moment. The state budgets those good old people were not like the dizzying billions of 10 digits today, indeed the most frightening trillions. We traveled, with Audu, Omneruo and Afakirya, mainly on the road. We also crossed the Niger river with the Pontoni in cases, in particular between Lokoja the state capital and Shintaku in the area of ​​the Lower Government in Kogi East. We visited all 21 areas of the local government of the state still and again. You will be right in saying that I know the state as the “lines on the palms of my hands”, deriving from the age of the Yoruba proverb.

Saturday 7 June 2025, the senator representing Kogi West District, Domenica Karimi, took his turn at Leclen, in the Spirit of representational relationship. The headquarters was the Secretariat of State of Kogi of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, (Nuj), who hosted him in Lokoja. Karimi had generous quantities of a 20 -page commemorative newspaper with him, the crusader, with the main title of the cover: * Sunday Steve Karimi: a crop of two years of results. * The copies, whose copies have been freely distributed to its audience, have captured its multisectorals in words and visions, as verifiable to testimonies. He received applause from his listeners some of whom were or direct beneficiaries of his initiatives or who could attest to the authenticity of his statements.

In recent months Karimi has tried to advance the topic for the establishment of a federal university in the Okun language area of ​​his basin. The defense for the update of the College of Agriculture Kabba, affiliated to Ahmadu Bello University, (Abu), Zaria, at the status of a university, was on the burner of the parliamentary discourse in time and in the season. The subsequent federal parliamentarians of Okunland repeatedly put the research in the foreground e
Since then Karimi has joined the push. To tell the truth, the member who represents the federal electoral college of Kabba-Bunu/Ijumu between 2011 and 2023, Tajudeen Yusuf, once he ensured the passage of the account by the “green rooms”. Other representatives to Blood Okun, in particular Salman Idris, successor of Yusuf; Leke Abejide, a second -term representative of the Federal Electoral College of Yagba, and Biodun Faleke, who represent the federal electoral college (in the Lagos state), are also on the case. More recently, they have collaborated to guarantee the passage of the same bill by the Chamber of Representatives, in 2024.

The immediate predecessor of Karimi in the Senate, Smart Adeymi, Senator of Tre Terms, advanced the bill to the third reading, during his stay in the ninth assembly. Dino Melaye in front of him, progressed the same document to the phase of his second reading. The bill also profit from the enthusiasm of the elements of Okun in the bureaucracy of the national assembly. Every time in the end it was born, a federal university of agriculture could be designated, just like those of Abeokuta, Akure, Makurdi, Isiagu, Umuaia and so on. This calibration of the imagined university will quickly speed up the food sufficiency of Nigeria and food safety desires, given the pure expanse of qualifying land in the state of Kogi. At the same time, Karimi believes that Egbe, his hometown, where the old internal Misson of Sudan, (SIM) * built a hospital that once served as a reference structure, could be intensified in a federal university of medicine and medical sciences. Given the unquenchable thirst for the members and people of Karimi, coming from adjacent states for university education, both universities will be well served by candidates and students.

In a gesture that shocked his listeners in his media interface, Karimi spoke of his plans to further improve the blood pressure of the parents who fight to meet with the school taxes of their children and departments. Remembering the scholarships regime that started in 2024, Karimi said that the program will be supported this year and would be really extended to other senator areas. According to him, “last year, I made N100m available for the 85 electoral departments in Kogi West, which provided scholarships of N100,000 each to 1000 recipients”. Continuing, Karimi said: “We are expanding the scope of now onwards. We will make available to N139m in Kogi West this year, in response to the applause and the appreciation that greeted the experimental disbursement. We have 96 departments for 57 local areas in Kogi East and my office will be available the sum of N100m to be paid fairly to N100.000. My office will take place. N61m, to be appropriate on the lines of our existing model.

Karimi also wants to help mitigate the challenges faced by the Nigerian young people, in the search for centers in which to participate in computer -based tests recently established, (CBT), * by the joint committee for admissions and matriculation (Jamb). He believes that the current agreement that prescribes the CBT centers for his people in other senators or neighboring states is not good enough. He is active in the renewal of the archive library of his Alma Mater, * Titcombe College, * Egbe for this purpose and has procured 275 laptops. The former students of the iconic institution include literary giants such as emergetus Olu Obafemi, and the much younger has sadly disappeared Pius Adesanmi who was the student of Obafemi at the University of Ilorin. He is equally providing a 30kva solar inverter; Make the library; Internet connectivity and installation of a 45kva diesel generator, to activate the center. Karimi is equally updating the title college water system to create improved learning conditions for young people in his district. He tells you that his intervention in giving a lift to his old school, will cost him close to N200m.

Beyond these figures, however, there is the consciousness of Sunday Karimi in helping to build the educational skills of his people as a key to unlocking a promising future. He intentionally deferred from the style of some of his colleagues, in his approach chosen to enhance his people. Social media regularly present politicians in some parts of the country who prefer to sit on the balconies of their country homes, launching notes in currency to people in their clubs who scroll and climb to collect money. This big performance of vanishing opulence, this weapon of poverty. The car garages of many of these parliamentarians and public officers overflow with current, exotic and expensive vehicles that they may never ride for several years, perhaps a life. However, the streets of their communities seem prototypes outside Somalia or South Sudan.

■ Tunde Ollusun, Phd, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (Fana), is a professor of creative writing contract at the University of Abuja.

Related