CONCERNING THE RECOMMISSIONING OF BENUE STATE SCHOOL OF NURSING AND MIDWIFERY - USHA ANENGA

I am a Seventh-Day Adventist and apart from believing that Saturday,
and not Sunday, is the true Sabbath on which every Christian should
set aside for rest and worship, we believe in re-baptism which means a
person can be baptised twice.

In the book of Acts 19:1-7, Apostle Paul met and preached to some
disciples at Ephesus, and having received greater light from the
teaching, the disciples decided to be baptised again. Even though they
had already been baptized "unto John's baptism," the enormity of the
disparity in the teaching they had received necessitated a second
baptism.


Likewise, the Benue state school of nursing and midwifery was
re-commissioned earlier today by former President Olusegun Obasanjo
who is on a visit to the state. While tongues have already started
wagging about the paucity of new projects in the state and choice to
re-commission an already existing one, I stand with Governor Samuel
Ortom and his administration on this.

We are well aware of how the school was abandoned to rot until it
finally lost its accreditation during the past administration. It's
fair to say that the school was decommissioned during this period
because it lost its mandate of producing qualified registrable nurses
and midwives and as a health worker, I know that nurses are one of the
cornerstones of the health sector without which it cannot function
even for a second.

Governor Ortom's personalization of the revival of health institutions
in the state, the school of nursing and midwifery inclusive especially
amidst daunting financial challenges is exemplary. Having inherited a
dilapidated and non-functional nursing school, he made wholesale
infrastructural and administrative upgrades akin to Apostle Paul's
"new teaching" to those disciples and if ever there was a
decommissioning
, a recommissioning; a validation of the school mandate was necessary
and justified in my opinion.

I encourage the state government to go ahead, revive and recommission
as many old, dilapidated and non-functional projects across the state
as possible. Let the government recommission the Ikyogen Cattle Ranch,
Ber-Agbum Fish Farm, Taraku Vegetable Processing Industry, and Benue
International Hotel, Owukpa Coal Project, Wannune Tomato Factory,
Benue Television Project, Otukpo Burnt Bricks and even the Makurdi
International Market. Let all the cottage hospitals across in the
state be renovated and recommissioned.

Why? Because, in my opinion, these old projects will add more value to
us than a gamut of new ones especially in the face of paucity of
funds. If we cannot maintain already existing projects, how much more
starting new ones?

This much is on my mind this evening.