THE MATHEMATICS OF MARGINALIZATION OF ORO Marginalization is social exclusion which theoretically falls on four correlated dimensions: which include insufficient access to social rights, material deprivation, limited political participation and a lack of normative integration. Oro ethnic nationalities are said to have been subjected to marginalization since the inception of the Akpabios administration in 2007. For instance, before 2007, the 3 key positions of Governor, Deputy Governor and Speaker of the House was shared among the 3 major ethnic blocks in the state comprising Ibibio, Annang and Oro. But this and other issues that were designed to ensure equity vanished in the Gov Akpabios administration. While few dissenting voices have attempted unsuccessfully to fault this claim, others have insisted that Gov Akpabio is not alone. Between 2007 and date Oro has had 2 different members in the National Assembly. They have had at least 4 members each time in the State House of Assembly and 5 Local Government Chairmen some of whom are serving their second term. To the best of my knowledge non of them has protested this imbalance until now. One is forced to ask what has been their role in this marginalization saga. Have they been culpable, negligent, selfish or look the other way? Let us see if mathematics can answer that question. Mathematics can be a useful tool in conflict resolution. Probability for instance is not only a measure of the likeliness that an event will or has occurred, it is also used to quantify an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we are not certain. It is this second function of probability that we may resort to, to see if we can resolve the raging conflict of the marginalization of Oro. Suppose that our control system Oro is made up of two subsystems A & B. Let A be the number of Gov Akpabios actions/inactions and let B be the actions/inactions of political office holders of Oro extraction since 2007. Suppose that A = {a1,a2,a3} where a1=0, a2=1, a3=>1 B = {b1,b2,b3} where b1=0, b2=1, b3=>1 We are interested in whose action/inaction caused the problem or otherwise. So we look at the events A and B. We look at the activities of A and B using the joint events and marginal probability P(A,B). We assume that government is interdependent at all levels. Therefore each government official has avenues to affect each others activities and possible outcomes. We propose P(A,B) as a joint probability distribution of A and B. Specifically, P(A,B) is the set of probabilities: {P(a1, b1), P(a1, b2), P(a1, b3), P(a2, b1), P(a2, b2), P(a2, b3), P(a3, b1), P(a3, b2), P(a3, b3)} where for any x and y events, P(ax,by) is the probability of the event ax and by. From the above, I challenge any mathematician to derive a positive or negative value for P(A) without the interrelationship of the other variable B or P(B) without A as the case may be. This is can only be possible if the events (a,b1), (a,b2), ..., (a,bm) are mutually exclusive. It follows that we can only calculate P(A) from the joint probability distribution if the variable B is marginalised out of P(A,B). Accordingly, I challenge all the representatives from Oro nation and the 5 LG Chairmen from 2007 to date to show their scorecards. Let them show that their functions and that of the governor has been mutually exclusive. As a result when Gov Akpabios input X was zero, P(B) was still positive because of input Y which came from their activities. Where this is impossible they should take the next possible rule known as the addition rule. When two events, A and B, are mutually exclusive, the probability that A or B will occur is the sum of the probability of each event. P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) They should therefore fashion a way to work together, first among themselves and most importantly with Gov Akpabio. They should harness their effort to overcome the development challenges of Oro and also work to give Oro a solid role come 2015. James Abang Writes From Atte-Okiuso Village - UrueOffong/Oruko LGA (08037277620 SMS)
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 21:53:39 +0000