Bishop Kuka Advises Parents To Avoid Shortcut To Success In Education

The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Hassan Kuka has advised parents to avoid shotcut to success in education for their children and wards, while backing the agitation for 30 percent political appointment for women but with a provision that only women of competence and not those related to people already in power.

Kukah stated this as a keynote speaker in Benin City at an event tagged Parents Summit organized by the state government as part of activities to mark the 2023 Education Week where he lauded the efforts of Governor Godwin Obaseki on repositioning the education sector in the state. He said,”I really want to comment on your strides and how far you have travelled and the privilege of education as the key and the guarantee of the future of our people, and the world.

Education, not only is it the leveler of society, it is the substitute for godfatherism, substitute for nepotism and the antidote to that that has held us back. “I commend your government for the decision to reinvent, to reposition and to restrategize about how the world must see the people of Edo state because all of us know very well that in the last 20 or so years, if you mention Edo, you yourself know what, you became notorious for , this great effort in my view is sufficiently worthy of commendation and appreciation because if you position your state, you will be able to compete effectively, efficiently in the 21st century.

“ The Holy Prophet of Islam was said to have said that we must all seek knowledge, even if it takes you to China because at that time, China was like the end of the world.”

Kuka said despite coming from a very humble background, “Education has taken me to the table of the rich, the high and the mighty. So education is a system of the transmission of knowledge. What kind of knowledge do we transmit, that is the critical question.

Many parents want the easy road for their children but there must be collaboration with the government to have centres of excellence. Costa Rica invested in education and today they have the highest threshold in education, about 90 percent educated population.” On the 30 percent appointment for women,he said.

“I am fully in support of women getting 30% of power, Nigeria but my argument is that it cannot be the same women whose husbands are already holding power in Abuja and across the country, it is nothing personal, it is the reality, you cannot tell me that the Ibos that the Yorubas and thet Fulanis and the Hausas who are already holding power, that they will bring their wives and their mistresses and their daughters to become ministers and senators and so on.

If you are going to do 30 per cent, that 30 per cent must go to women who represent the common people, it is not about just say – ing any woman at all, there must be discrimination in favour of injustice that has been institutionalised.”