I am constraint to write you this open letter because it is the only way I can safely contact you since ordinary folks like me no longer have access to you in your present exalted position as either “de – facto” or “de – jure” governor of Osun State.

Secondly inspite of our different status, like all citizens, we are inseparable stakeholders in the Osun State Enterprise, unlike you, I have no loyalty or commitment to any other state apart from Osun hence the criticality of this message to your eminent self.

Thirdly, I have been involved in the education industry for some years now, I am sufficiently positioned to make some observation and ask some questions regard your reclassification and restructuring of education in Osun State.

I am not averse to your erecting new mega structures for schools as Governors Ladoja, Alao – Akala, Fashola and Mimiko have done in Oyo, Lagos and Ondo State, although during the last Ondo State gubernatorial election campaign, your mentor Sen. Bola Tinubu had openly chastised Gov. Mimiko say “ Ondo State is not suitable for mega school structure”.

I doubt if it makes economic sense for you to demolished existing functional and structurally sound school structures just to erect ones simply because they had name of your predecessor “OYIN NI O” on them. It is also more perplexing considering the fact that it is not as if the number of public classrooms to available school children is excessive and that there is no shortage of land to build additional classrooms. Erecting the new mega ones would only have complimented and added to the number of classrooms available and make school nearer to the children unlike the present situation, which is contrary to UNESCO recommendation of schools to children, because there are now fewer classrooms for the pupils, many who now have to travel longer distances before they get to school.

As I write this letter, you have deliberately not allowed your education official to distribute thousand of textbooks ordered by the OYINLOLA administration to the school children just as you directed OYINLOLA’S name to be removed from a building at the Osun State University, Osogbo Campus. Haba Ogbeni Rauf, Governors will come and go but Osun State Insha Allah will outlive us all. Such an attitude is not only ungubernatorial and infantile it smacks of some degree of paranoia.

Grave as the above observations may be, they are not the main subject of this letter to your Excellency.

Many other indigenes & myself are very worried about your new introduction of a 4-5-3 system to replace the Nationally accepted 6-3-3 system of education in our Osun state.

On your assumption of office as Governor in Osun state, I like many others were amused at your fancy for sloganeering and attempt to change from "Osun state" to " state of Osun" but since it was merely fanciful & posed no substantial difference , we regarded it as a display of executive/gubernatorial drama.

The reclassification from 6-3-3 to your 4-5-3 which seems like another fanciful brainwave is however a serious matter that must not be treated as drama, not least because of its implications for the many children who attend public schools unlike your kids that attended special private schools.

Do you Mr Governor realise that the 6-3-3 system innovation is a product of many years of research , workshops, seminars interactive consultations,local & international conferences amongst educationists with the involvement of UNESCO?

One of your commissioners declared that within 3 months on your assumption of office, you convened an Education summit at the Micon Golf Hotel,Ada where the Nobel Laureate Prof Wole Soyinka was Chairman & that the 4-5-3 system is a product of that less than one week summit.

Dear Mr Governor, I challenge you to permit your Ministry of Education officials or the OSBC to release for public viewing,the unedited recordings of that your so called education summit.

Please don't hoodwink us with the eminent name of Prof. Wole Soyinka whom we all acknowledge is a great scholar,academic,author, & intellectual but definitely not an educationist; we know the Nobel laureate himself will never concede to be dressed in burrowed garments by us politicians.

Even at that is it rational to compare a 3-4days summit in ADA to many years of work by educationists like Professors Babs Fafunso , O.C Nwana,Yoloye, Dibu Ojerinde, Olu Aina & many more too numerous to mention?

Another of your party functionaries proclaimed that in this day & age,the Primary School leaving certificate is not neccessary. Mr Governor, why don't you educate this your ignorant party apparatchik that even your eminent self had to produce your Primary school leaving certificate along with others to INEC before your clearance for the Gubernatorial election .

More importantly, is Osun state a separate entity outside of Nigeria ? Have you considered the implication of this your education reclassification for those pupils/students who have to transfer to other states & vice versa.

There is no doubt that as leaders, we must continue to aspire to improve on the quantity & quality of education in our state & Nigeria generally . Even President Barak Obama during his reelection campaign in the US made education one of his priorities. To that extent I salute your avowed commitment to improving the educational standard in Osun state. The beauty of democracy is that new regimes should always aspire to improve on the standards of their predecessors.

However I make bold to state that what the Education sector needs are well coordinated focused prioritized improvement initiatives not brainwave sloganeering .

There is no evidence to date that your 4-5-3 system will be better than the 6-3-3 system in this country. There cannot be any serious academic publication to compare a yet untested 4-5-3 system to the 6-3-3 that presently operates.

The implementation of the 6-3-3 system is as yet not as good as expected all over the country, but that is a problem of implementation not the system Mr Governor. Would it not have been better if you tried to improve on what is already on ground?

I would like to remind you Mr Governor that many children including yours who are products of the present 6-3-3 system have performed excellently well in different fields at higher(tertiary) educational levels both in Nigeria & abroad.

If the problem therefore is with the shoddy implementation , can you guarantee this same problem will not affect your new 4-5-3 system,before Chief Obafemi Awolowo started the free primary education in the fifties, a lot of efforts was made to get the stakeholders involved, many Teacher's Training Colleges were newly opened, public enlightening campaign was mounted & improved welfare packages were introduced for teachers. You haven't done anything like this, in fact the "Oyin teachers corps" has been scrapped, you've only rebranded the school feeding which the PDP government started pretending it's a new initiative of your government .

You have also decreed that all public schools must wear the same uniform & brought your Lagos contractor friend to be the sole provider of the uniforms. Ogbeni Governor, have you considered the implication of this your monopolistic favouritism on the economy of the ordinary local tailors that you have now plunged into relative unemployment ?

Is there no room for tradition in your background ? St. Margaret's Girls high school Ilesa, Ilesa Grammar school, Methodist high School Ilesa, Baptist Girls High School Osogbo , Osogbo Grammar School, St. Charles College to mention a few all predates you & will outlive you, how have these their uniforms offended your sensibilities Mr Governor? Or will your new uniform improve academic performance ?

Pray Ogbeni Governor, where in the democratic world does this happen. In communist Cuba & at the peak of communism in People's Republic of China in the Mao-Tse Tong days, the tunic like uniform for everybody was the vogue but these countries are themselves moving on now.

It is a known fact that you are an Engineer, a product of the prestigious "The Polytechnic" Ibadan, even amongst your fellow ACN/APC governors who are also no less educated than you, this your 4-5-3 initiative is anomalous . Mr. Governor the old adage that two heads are better than one is also applicable to governance .

I do not want to take you up on the over advertised computer tablets (opon- imo) of yours, suffice it to say however that both Governors Mimiko & Fayemi of Ekiti states have distributed more computers to school children without all the noisy fanfare that accompanied yours. Up till now the exact cost of the project partly handled by your son is still shrouded in secrecy, whilst more than 76% of the pupils & students are yet to be given these computers.

Likewise I do not wish to take you up on the reclassification & restructuring of schools, the cancellation of Fakunle High School, so as to reallocate the site to a mega shopping outlet which many say that either you or some of your political associates have substantial interest. If this is true I will advise you to have a rethink & find some other site for your mega shop especially since you claim a sincere love for education . Afterwards There is no shortage of land in Osun state.

There is also a suspicion that your reclassification & restructuring agenda has a religious underbelly, I will leave the Christian & Islamic authorities to deal with this.

It is however pertinent to remark that Christians & Muslims in Osun have for many generations cohabited peacefully together & are very intricately interwoven & related, that nobody, I repeat no authority must try to destabilize the peace & harmony on the alter of political expediency or opportunism for it surely not augur well for such a person/authority. Let nobody take the people for granted!! Softly softly Mr Governor.

Lastly I understand there is "IFA" studies on your computer tablet. Is IFA subject now in the NECO or WAEC syllabus? Who designed your IFA syllabus Ogbeni Rauf?

Me I dey laugh o, as I wish you well.

Long live Osun State!

Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

.

Space booked. I wil read nd comment later

Drniyi4u: .

bad boy

dejt4u:
bad boy

d stuff z too much na........jez gotta book d space

Drniyi4u:
d stuff z too much na........jez gotta book d space

abi na. Aiye opo. Time no dey