I read your article in Daily Sun of Tuesday, October 10, 2017, on this subject matter. I want to disagree with your position on this. In other civilised climes, with basic qualification such as five credits, including English and mathematics, a student secures admission into the university. The JAMB result does not make our standard of education better than the UK.

What killed our education standard was not JAMB result; rather, it was poor conditions of service of teachers. This left the teachers with no option than to look for other means of livelihood, thereby abandoning the job of teaching.

That a student didn’t do well in JAMB examination does not mean the student is a dullard.

And, again, what the policy of lowering the cut-off mark is all about is how to admit more students into the university every year than what we have on hand, where students wait for years all in the name of sitting for JAMB examinations.

JAMB said the minimum cut-off mark is 120. Where you have a maximum, there should be a minimum too.

JAMB said, after the maximum marks, if a university still has space for admission, the university can admit the students who scored as low as 120. To me, this is not the problem with our university education.

Those of you who have channels such as the one you used to put up this good piece should use them and dissipate energy on pressing it on our government to pay teachers living wages from primary to tertiary level. This is the only panacea to enhance the quality of university education.

•Mr. Daniels Ezeanichie is from Okota, Lagos

Re: When anger rules our heads

Kindly refer to your article on the above subject matter, where you insinuated that the Federal Government was wrong when it sent soldiers to attack IPOB members. What can you say about the attack on the northern community by IPOB members? What you are portraying is that the lives of IPOB members are more precious than the lives of those they attacked.

•Mansur Dayyabu

Re: When is a lie good for the nation?

Your article in Daily Sun newspaper of September 5, 2017, is quite interesting. It has helped us to understand how far our presidential special assistants and special advisers on media and publicity have gone to over-protect their boss.

In my own opinion, when Garba Shehu wrote that rats had invaded Aso Rock and destroyed some essential files, I thought he used rats as a figure of speech or personification, not that rats actually invaded Aso Rock.

Thanks.

•Ibe Jack Mbara

Related News

Re: Ngige, APC defender, spits fire against the Igbo

Thanks, Levi, for your well-thought-out reply to Chris Ngige’s vitriolic attack against his own.

Ngige has been carrying himself above what he really is. The Igbo can forgive indeed. With his mouth he narrated how the result of his election and that of President Obasanjo were written on the same table by the same hand in 2003. It is that same fraud that brought him to limelight. He has no shame. Someone who wants his political party, the APC, to make inroads into the South-East is threatening to pull down structures constructed with taxpayers’ money.

For the years he spent in the Senate, Ngige’s contribution to his senatorial district was the construction of a few toilets in a few secondary schools. He has been a federal minister for two years. What has he brought to Anambra State?

It’s like the ovation he receives from market women and thugs who enjoy seeing his goatish beard is giving him a very false impression of both himself and his party’s acceptance in the East. In 2011, his ldemili Local Government Area returned 100 per cent vote for him, meaning that everybody who registered for the election voted. There was no death of anyone, nobody travelled, not one sick person, and no one abstained from voting. How could he have defeated the indefatigable Prof. Dora Akunyili, your sister, of course?

It is election time once again in Anambra State. He has again joined forces with the people who kidnapped and nearly killed him after burning down government buildings, radio and television houses, government and individual vehicles in 2003 that made the late Prof. Chinua Achebe reject national honours awarded him by the Obasanjo government.

The only hope Ngige and the APC have that makes them boast and threaten fire and brimstone is the armed forces they used in Edo State. Tell me how a party that wants to go into an election, not by selection or imposition, would be threatening the electorate. It is only with the APC government we are witnessing this orgy.

•Elder Michael Ofuluchi (Lagos)

The collapsed Ibadan-Ife-Ilesha road

I write on behalf of the millions of masses that suffer daily on the Ibadan-Ife-Ilesha road, which has fallen into a sorry state. It is incredible, inconceivable, and amazing that a federal road would completely collapse like the Ibadan-Ife-Ilesha road (particularly the Ife-Ilesha stretch), and none of the three tiers of government would do anything about it. There are deep gullies at virtually every 500 metres, and trailers frequently fall off at different spots, completely blocking the road and making it impassable. Vehicle breakdowns and damage are common scenes.

Accidents frequently occur as a result of the impassable road, while criminal activities and illegal checkpoints are facilitated and enhanced. What leaves one dumbfounded is that the Federal Ministry of Works, under the leadership of Babatunde Fashola, a supposed progressive known for his perceived dislike for acts of public neglect and irresponsibility, will be so numb and insensitive to the plight of citizens who use this road, owing to complete federal neglect of the road.

We have heard the mantra of economic mismanagement of the previous administration, and the present economic recession. But, if a complete reconstruction is not possible on the Ibadan-Ife-Ilesha road for now, is regular palliative maintenance on this road also impossible?

Under the widely maligned and castigated government of President Goodluck Jonathan, the activities of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency were regularly felt on these roads; never has the Ibadan-Ife-Ilesha road been this bad under any previous administration.

State governments cannot be exonerated from blame for the appalling condition of this stretch of road.  We are aware of the temporary efforts put in by state governors such as Akinwumi Ambode and Ayo Fayose on federal roads (and even Fashola as governor of Lagos State), knowing that it is their people who suffer daily agonies on the roads.  The case of Fayose is interesting; he constructs large billboards on every federal road he repairs in Ekiti, accusing the federal government of acute irresponsibility but indicating that he has to repair the roads because of his love and care for his people.

In sum, we call on the Federal Government and, specifically, the Federal Ministry of Works to rise to their responsibilities, and effect immediate repairs on, and maintenance of, the Ibadan-Ife-Ilesha road that has become completely dilapidated and virtually impassable.