Coalition of South-East Youth Leaders, COSEYL, an umbrella body of all youth organizations in the Southeast, decries the state of decay and dilapidation in two federal academic institutions in the region.
Federal School of Dental Technology and Therapy Enugu (FEDSDTTEN) and National Institute of Nigerian Languages (NINLAN) both of which are situated in Enugu and Aba respectively have, under the watch of successive governments, become an eyesore.
It is not in doubt that these two institutions were created and mandated by federal laws to serve vital academic and research purposes for the nation. NINLAN was established in the 1990s to, among other things, help Nigeria arrive at achieving a national hybrid language, the kind similar to Swahili and other world populous languages.
While the institution today faces abandonment and decay, it does not access TETFUND financial support due largely to the act establishing the institute whereas it both OND and HND. Today in the said institute, learning facilities and kits are insufficient and lean. Poor fencing and demarcation today has led to encroachment of the facility by herdsmen. Again, the walkways and parking lots in the institute are a sorrow thing; so much for a federal institute.
While this is the case with NINLAN, the Federal School of Dental Technology and Therapy Enugu FEDSDTTEN remains yet another sorry story. One and only of such in not only the nation but entire West African subregion, the School today suffers derilict and decay against the name and mandate it bears. It is not supposed to be that such a facility deserving of jealous protection of government of the day is left in state of woes.
The Coalition, against this background, calls on the federal government to do the needful and resuscitate this academic jewel in the South-East region. The potential of putting Nigeria ahead is great with these two citadels of academic learning. Nigeria, in a fast globalising world, stands the opportunity of benefitting and building cultural hybrid and of competing with other developed democracies in area of nursing, therapy and research should the School of dental therapy be repositioned. Revenues and tax base will both grow as Nigeria could become the leading light in the said fields, academic to tourist centre.
This call becomes the more important considering the place and role of the two institutions, for if nothing is done to better and remedy these two, then we will have lost our prime place in languistic and medical parlance in not only Africa but our world.
Such institutions are job creators and capable of spotting Nigeria and Africa in the global map of learning and should be equipped with state of the arts facilities for learning. Time to redeem and salvage them is now.
