The Director, Training School, National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), Mrs. Brigette Yerima has emphasized the significance of project defence as a prerequisite for the fulfillment of the requirement for the award Post Graduate Diploma in Cultural Administration (PGDCA).
Yerima disclosed this while addressing students during the project defence by the students of the 2019/2020 academic session of the Abuja Study Centre of the NICO Training School held on Wednesday, May 12, 2021, said the basic reasons for the project defence was to fulfill academic requirements, and to ascertain whether the students did the research works themselves or not.
She congratulated the students for fulfilling the academic requirement and further encouraged them to relax and present their work without any form of anxiety. Her words: “Finally we are here today. I want you to see yourselves as professionals in the area of your research works, feel free and relax. It is a learning process after all, you wrote the project yourselves so feel free and make me proud.”
The students took turn to present their research work in an orderly manner. First on the list was Mrs. Bolanle Oladiran whose project topic was on Child Labour and Its Impact on Secondary School Students: A Study of Junior Secondary School Jikwoyi, Abuja. In her opinion child labour could be caused by scavenging, street hawking and poverty, among others. She opined that there are different connotations of child labour. She however, recommended that there should be implementation and enforcement of child policy right to prevent child labour in the area.
Defending his project, Caleb Saanyol Nor of the Executive Secretary’s Office, Abuja, whose project topic on SWEM KARAGBE as Ancestral Divinity for Social Control in Tiv Land, North Central Nigeria, said that SWEM KARAGBE has the potential to curb all the social issues bedeviling the Nigerian society if invoked. Citing instance of how it was invoked in 2019 to track the syndicate group in Tiv land that was terrorizing and killing people. He proposed that since the spate of crime in Nigeria has been on the increase and that the security apparatus and structures seem to be over-powered by kidnapping, boko haram insurgence, and banditry, the SWEM KARAGBE deity should be encouraged and used to fight crisis and enforce social control and cohesion.
In all, 20 students defended their project works in different topics relating to culture and the society. Present at the 2019/2020 academic session project defence were Head, Theatre Arts and Cultural Studies Department, Nasarawa State University Keffi, (NSUK), Dr. Suru Damisa; Coordinator, Post Graduate Programmes at the department of Theatre Arts and Cultural Studies (NSUK), Dr. Philip Umoru; Deputy Director, NICO Training School, Mallam Ismaila; Internal Auditor NICO, Mr. Aremu Okorodudu.
Njideka Dimgba
E.S Office, Abuja.