AFTER a visit to the late Och‵Idoma in 2019, I learnt from him so many things that are responsible for the Idoma nation not to realise its potentials. Thereafter, I wrote two opinion papers about Idoma people of which I titled, one: “The Case of Idoma”. In it, I highlighted the reasons the Idoma nation is unfortunate in many ways. I had lamented in an earlier paper about the lack of university in the land in which I said that there were capable people that could build or bring university to Idomaland. Few years later we got a university in the land: the Federal University of Health Sciences, Otukpo (FUHSO).
While the people were still celebrating the arrival of the first university in Idomaland, Arc. Sonny Sylva Togo Echono, the Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), brought another institution of learning – the Learn2Earn Tech-Hub Centre in Otukpo. The Learn2Earn digital skill acquisition centre is an initiative meant to equip young people with digital knowledge that meets the current global technological advancement, so that they will be viable in the digital market.
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This new development has propelled unfickle minds, in eulogising Arc. Echono, to go further retrospectively to conclude that he was a viable underground player in the establishment of the University of Health Sciences in Otukpo. Recall that Arc. Echono was the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education during the process of the establishment of the institution. As the head of the administration in the ministry, which has the responsibility to oversee the process of such an establishment, Echono’s role cannot be overemphasised. While that was going on, he was simultaneously lobbying for another institution of higher education, which he succeeded – that is, the Federal College of Education, Odugbo, Apa LGA, Benue State.
Therefore, it is crystal clear that Echono is the architect of the new phase of Idoma there is today, especially in the area of education – an area that is nonpareil in the development of a nation. Apart from being the architect of the new glorious phase of Idoma, it is undisputable that he is a luciferase lighting the hope of the people, especially the youths, for a better future.
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This noble gentleman has done greater things for his people than any politicians have done for the people, and here he is not a politician yet. The only way the Idoma people can show their gratitude for all these institutions he helped bring is by supporting them in every best means to make them work for the greater development of the land. The support of the people is very key for the institutions to put out their best.
I had written in one of my opinion articles some time ago that the greatest trouble with Idoma is the refusal of its people to cooperate with one another and unite to advance the Idoma interest as a nation. Recently, we saw this trouble manifest in FUHSO.
The trouble generates from the fact that most Idoma people are susceptible to insolence and eccentricity, and as such every Idoma man craze to be a lord over his brothers, and, therefore, doesn’t want to accept that someone else is his leader, talk more of submitting to her/him. That was what brewed the leadership fracture that happened few months ago at FUHSO.
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This trouble with Idoma amplifies a vicious, unbridled hatred that brews from envy, and it traverses all our communities. It’s an offspring of an egocentricity which makes people not wanting to see a richer or more powerful sisters/brothers than them.
This nature enthrals the hearts of many people so much that, in many Idoma communities, either the lives of those who make fortunes are always crippled, or the privileged few cripple others from growing. But here, Arc. Echono has demonstrated himself as a different breed by his continuous push to improve both the land and its people through functional education.
It is cardinal to say that the new digital skill centre (Learn2Earn program) is more fragile than the university, considering the noble young tech instructors who are aliens in the land. They will not be able to withstand or tolerate unprincipled behaviours or treatment from the people. Therefore, everyone, in their own token, are needed to uniquely and sincerely support the people brought to manage the program.
At this era, the Idoma people are not supposed to continue to demonstrate the attitude of their fathers which has repudiated the power of the Idoma crown in so many ways.
Olohy, a social critic, writes from Keffi, Nasarawa State.
