Let the Masses Live ...
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Social Services
Social Services Policy
1. Health
All things put together human activities become redundant in the absence of life and good health. So long as the human persons remain the most essential in the process of human activities, so long as life remains basic and central to all aspects of development and progress. The sustenance of good life therefore, is imperative for any society if it is to achieve the goals of good living. Good health is therefore, basic to overall national development.
As obvious as this is, we are still far from meeting the health needs of our people. The situation is worse in the rural areas where fetishism is still seen as an alternative source of medicaments. The point should however be made that health is not about medicaments alone but involves other aspects of living such as clean environment, good food, water, etc.
The policy thrust of the AA health programme therefore, is one of an integrated health delivery system in which preventive health care through the provision of nutritious foods, clean water and environment would be applied mixed with primary, secondary etc care systems, in which traditional medicine would equally play significant role.
2. Education
Education is the pivot of development, the master of good living, the pillar of national life and the spring board of virtually every human endeavour. The good of life comes from it. A society without doctors, engineers, lawyers etc cannot be said to be a progressive one. Education provides these and more. It develops the potentials of the individual for the good of self and society.
Put simply, the society owes its soul and blood to education. Without it human progress would have been easily impossible. With it, life gains more meaning and relevance. If anything surpasses education in the service of man, that thing is only education.
Also, we have allowed it reach collapsing level. The sector is in a very bad shape, incapable of playing its excellent role. Schools and colleges are not there in required number, where there are, the materials are not available and when in place the cost are prohibitive.
Consequently, the teachers cannot properly teach and the children or students learn but little. Teachers at all levels are yearning for better pay and condition of service. Parents are crying out against high cost and lack of placement. Consequently, children roam to streets growing to join the rank of social misfits more on account of their social neglect.
For the lucky ones in schools, they hardly make the required grades. They do grow to join the rank of the socially unwanted. Such has education turned out to be.
Much as we preach the values of technical education, more do students pass out without knowing what a school laboratory looks like. Theory remains the knowledge of science which can’t be applied.
Of free primary education, rhetoric rather than action remains the philosophy. Consequently, about 60 percent of school age children are said to be out of school. In like manner, not more than 30 percent of those who pass out from primary school get placements in colleges. While the university cannot accommodate 30 – 40 percent of qualified candidates. In sum total about 65 percent of the population cannot read in the Roman script.
3. Housing
The housing policy of the AA would be geared towards the provision of cheap houses for the people in accordance with their traditional needs. In the pursuance of this policy the resettlement programme of the Party would be considered to achieve the purposes of providing utility services to the people. Our housing scheme therefore, would cover the provision of electricity, water supply, schools, health clinics, market and road services.
Modernized local materials would be used in the housing scheme constructed to suit the environmental settings of our different people. To achieve these objectives, the existing materials used in the construction of houses in different parts of the country would be improved upon and applied accordingly. The AA is encouraged by the fact that local houses built with such materials have stood the test of time and should therefore be encouraged.
In our mass housing programme, priority would first be given to the homeless and rural areas in order to stop the problem of rural urban migration and thereby encouraging settlements on or near farmlands, this would boost the agricultural economy.
4. Public Utilities
Under our public utilities programme is the provision of telecommunication and postal services, electricity and water supply. These services are quite essential for the growth and health of any nation. Yet, they have not been functioning to the maximum satisfaction of public needs
As noted elsewhere, the nation has been incurring losses from the inadequate services being provided by NEPA for instance while lack of good drinking water has been affecting our nation health programme, telecommunication and postal services as means of reducing some level of pressure on the transportation sector have not been performing very satisfactorily either, mostly for reasons of poor funding, bad management, dependence on foreign sources for their raw materials and machines along with several other factors.
These problems would therefore, have to be looked into if they are to provide efficient services.
The twin purpose of our electric power policy as enunciated is to reduce pressure on our forestry resources and the use of private generating sets which has been consuming a lot of foreign exchange and its attendant inflationary pressure on cost and prices. The other is to supply what remains after our excess national demand to neighbouring countries as part of our foreign policy goals and the need to strengthen inter-regional friendship.