Solomon2day

The major discussion among Nigerians in every part of the country revolves around the hunger and poverty in the land. The people continue to complain of the prohibitive cost of foodstuff in the markets, the absence of quality health care delivery, the high rate of unemployment, and the declining productivity of workers as a result of poor conditions of service. Under the present situation, real income is very low due to low productivity. The inducement to invest is also very low as a result of the low purchasing power of the people. What has the government done to ameliorate the situation? This question continues to linger. Foreign investors have continued to observe the trend, which is obviously not favorable and decide against sinking their money in unsafe waters. This in essence suggests that leadership at all levels of government now contend with ignorance, mediocrity, and the prominent lack of initiative to redeem the situation. In this situation, lies, deceit, threats, and oth...

A moderate standard of learning must include the ability of a child to be able to spell ordinary words, correctly to write legibly and intelligently, to make out or check a common bill, to have sufficient geographical knowledge to know the position of the countries of the world and above all to be sufficiently acquainted with the Scriptures. In every part of Nigeria today, most children leave school without attaining these standards. The present system of education at all levels of government is not only bad for the children but also for the teachers. The teaching profession has been debased by the government and the devices of the teachers. Parents have a major duty to their children, but most parents habitually neglect this major duty. Untrained teachers and bad methods of teaching, projects by contractors that were not inspected with adequate motive, un-revised or ill-revised policies and the complete absence of all organizations of schools in relation to one another constitu...

In this dispensation of insecurity and violent crimes in Nigeria, the urgent need for undiluted news and commentaries for the people cannot be overemphasized. However, the focus of most of the outlets owned by non-professionals revolves around pecuniary,political and self-driven interests. This has resulted in the dissemination of outright falsehood,half-truths and sponsored propaganda. Sadly,a sizable number of professionals have made patronage their guiding lights,even as mediocrity and quackery have now taken over the media space. In Victorian Britain,The Morning Post came into being in 1772 while the Times in 1785,during the period the government launched a campaign of restriction on the Press which resulted in the emergence of six notorious Acts in 1819. William Cobbett published the Political Register and later on Two Penny Trash which infringed the provisions of the publications Act of 1819. Wooller published The Black Dwarf,a miner's newspaper in 1817. John Gast owned The...

An official report in Great Britain in 1818 described the overall outcome of education of all sorts in this period as a'' lamentable deficiency'' in education for the poor. Even though the voluntary effort was restricted to the towns, the country districts constituted wells of ignorance. It is to be noted that some districts in London had half of their population in the category of stark illiterates. Sadly, this is the situation in most states in Nigeria today. The vice of ignorance is now a dangerous threat to public order. The deliberate creation of the uneducated by the government at all levels is now the basis for misrule and poor governance. Political reasons for the deteriorated standards of education are visible everywhere in the country, even as political concessions have overwhelmed educational opportunities. The government discrimination at all levels, in public-owned educational institutions, has ensured that indigent children must be held responsible for t...

In early Victorian Britain, health and cleanliness were visible challenges in the slums. The outbreak of cholera in 1832 and 1837 prompted the Government to probe the causes of the fever. In 1838, three medical experts-Dr. Southwood-Smith, Dr. Arnott, and Dr, Kay-submitted Reports anchored on the physical causes of Cholera fever in London. This included Dr. Southwood-Smith's worrisome account of the slums of Bethnal Green and White chapel. Indeed, the above mentioned and others-the Report of the Health Towns Committee published in 1840 and the Report by the Poor LawCommission, authored by Edwin Chadwick and published in 1842-the Report on an Inquiry into the sanitary condition of the laboring population of Great Britain, in addition to the Royal Commission which also compiled Reports in 1844 and 1845 revealed that although Britain was blazing the trail in the world in industrial development, living conditions of its citizens were in a terrible and poor state, with typhoid fever ...

The Poor Report published in 1834 outlined the degradation and inefficiency of the Speenham system that had flourished across England for almost 40 years. The system encouraged demoralization, rude behavior, laziness, thriftlessness, and immorality of the poor. The lack of centralization, dependence on the parish initiative, and the absence of a responsive and responsible authority weakened the system. The resultant administrative anarchy gave rise to the emergence of several petty interests trailed by corruption. Poor relief was a disservice to the poor, a drain on the rich, and a threat to the government. The Poor Law Amendment Act of August 14, 1834, made no difference but established administrative machinery, giving prominence to three remote impersonal Commissioners in London. Their activities resulted in despondency, disillusionment, and anger among the majority poor. In present-day Nigeria, the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management claims that the...

In the 19th century in England, children and adults of both sexes were subjected to despicable factory labor. Even though there were several factory-reform movements that led the agitations for an end to inhuman practices in the factories; the stubborn, unscrupulous, and grasping attitude of the factory owners, who were in their private lives often kind fathers and husbands, such as John Bright, resisted reforms in their factories and still engaged children of nine years old to work in these factories. In the same vein in Nigeria today, the exploitation of labor, children inclusive is now very prominent. Underaged children engaged by those in the Organized POrivate Sector(OPS) and government contractors are commonplace in a number of states, while these contractors minimize costs by going further to engage cheap labor and procure inferior materials. However, in England, factories, workshops, and mines reforms became a reality after a long and painful struggle against the resistance o...