By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Senator Ibezim Chukwuma has identified our blessings as our challenge that has beclouded our zeal to develop as a country.
According to the Imo North senator, criss-cross Nigeria and you will find out that we are the most blessed country, but I believe that it’s that blessing that is also our challenge because truly you cannot grow as a nation without challenge.
“Nigeria is one of the most blessed countries in the world and I can tell why because I have travelled to so many continents and I am yet to find any country that has the kind of weather we have in this country and we also have the vegetation”.
He stated this on Wednesday in a chat with newsmen on his bill titled:”The African Union Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Domestication and Enforcement) Bill 2021″ which passed first reading on the floor of the Senate.
Senator Ibezim who narrated the benefits of the bill informed that that bill the bill erupted from Kampala convention, adding that for every bill that has come into existence, there must be a challenge it wanted to address.
“So the Nigerian factor of it is that we have been talking about IDPs, there is a different between Internally Displaced People (IDP) and then refugees. But there are so many things that come with it. You have been hearing about IDP’s in the North West. Truly speaking, in every part of Nigeria, we have internally displaced people. Whether it is because of force de jure or challenge of harsh weather, rain or displacement, whatever it is, what we are talking about is how to manage our people in Nigeria that have been displaced. Are we talking about how to shelter them, how to feed or cloth them, how to rehabilitate them, there are a lot of issues that have not been dealt with in this country.
“I am so passionate about this bill and this bill is actually apt now. You can see that since the pandemic, we have had lots and lots of issues and every nation that will develop will have to deal with these issues as they come. So that is what we want to deal with now. There are so many aspect of dealing with Internal Displaced People and those aspects are the aspects we want to capture fully and holistically so that we would assure the well-being of our people.
Senator Ibezim also recalled how his earlier bill known as the National Research and Innovation Counseling Establishment bill 2021 has passed first reading. He said that the bill will help in the development of the economy.
According to him, “any nation that would grow would at least remember his past experiences. One way that Nigeria would develop is just like every developed nation, is through Science and Technology and Research. So we need to really document research works so that we can fall back to it and also expand from it. So we have had so many ideas but I am talking about the council so that this Research Council will be properly put in place to develop our science and technology.
He continued, “Not just about Science and Technology but other aspects without proper research and innovation and also capturing it well. Because you see a lot of people will just copy and paste and it’s not helping us as a nation.
The federal lawmaker said that for this to be achieved, we must reinvent classroom library in our nursery and primary school.
These are elementary things we were being taught in school before.
But with classroom library, what we have tried to do, sometime during our second year anniversary, I visited the IDP camp and what I did was to go to IDP camp to introduce classroom library to them.
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