By Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
As Nigeria marks 25 years of uninterrupted democratic experience, the Vice Chancellor of Taraba State University Jalingo Professor Sunday Bako has described the journey so far as been fair and laden with loads of lessons to be learnt.
Professor Bako, who disclosed this on Saturday in Jalingo said that there is so much to be desired especially with the present extreme hardship experienced by most Nigerians.
He said that Democracy is a system of government that is new to most Africans as it is very inconsistent with the culture of the people and traditional systems of leadership that were prevalent prior to the colonial experience.
“Well, I will say that the journey has been fair so far. Yes there have been lots of ups and downs but we have been able to sustain democracy for 25 years and witnessed various transitions including from a ruling party to the opposition. That is not what you see everyday.
“There is no denying fact that things are not exactly rosy as one would have expected. Yes, there is serious hardship in the land now and most people are not finding life funny at all. As a matter of fact, the surge in prices of basic needs especially food stuff is a cause for alarm.
“For me, I feel rather than focus on giving palliatives that often do not get to the right people who actually need them, the government should focus more on trying to control inflation so that there will be value for money. As it stands now, even if more money is released to people’s hands, it will do very little good because it’s value continues to drop almost daily” Bako said.
The Vice Chancellor, dubbed Digital VC, further disclosed that the University was diversifying to engage more in entrepreneurship to better the plights of the people around and boost income.
He said that the University now has a water processing factory, a bakery, a mushroom farm, a printing press and other investments and is also planning on going into agriculture on a large scale to contribute in the fight against food scarcity.
