Abiola Ajimobi, state of education in Oyo and judgement of history
Abiola Ajimobi, state of education in Oyo and judgement of history
Posted on January 26, 2017 0
6334reporters’ Editorial Board

The Oyo State governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, has for a couple of months occupied a prime place in the media spotlight apparently for the wrong reasons bordering on his cavalier leadership style, arrogance of power, delusion of grandeur and his near pathological obsession to cripple education sector in his state. It is an irony of history and ineluctability of fate that a man who has consistently, without let, shown an overt disdain for democracy and the sensibility of his people, had the singular honour of election to a second term as governor.

Leadership is about responsibility, and one of the ways of measuring it is the extent to which a leader can go to respond to the yearning of his people. Democracy, it would seem, entail the virtues of patience, opendoor policy, citizen participation and majority view carrying the day, but it would seem in all the cardinal , democratic indices of measuring responsiveness of leaders to the sensibility of peoples, Mr. Ajimobi has performed less than salutary.

There’s no area of the gross insensitivity more visible than in education sector, an area the governor has consistently ,even if deliberately stoked the embers of perpetual discord. He has for the past two years been engaged in a running battle with education stakeholders, students, labour, civil society and the Christian and Muslim missions who have stakes in the sector.

Mr. Ajimobi has maintained that there is no money to continue to fund both the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology and the plethora of public secondary schools in the state. He has come up with solution: privatization of education in the state. His argument is that about 33 percent of the budget, which is about 40 billion is used to fund education annually.

This view has been challenged by insiders and stakeholders who have argued that the government has not come out with the truth, since the parlous state of education infrastructure and education value in the state is an indication that the governor is not only insincere but has ulterior motive in his drive to privatize education in the state.

Government has denied wrong motives, adding that the missionaries of both faiths who founded majority of the schools before they were taken over by the military government in 1975, have been piling pressure on him to return the schools to them. But this line of argument may have hit a brick wall by an advertorial placed by the government requiring expression of interests by private investors who have competence and experience in the running of schools to apply along with the payment of N250, 000 form.

Critics have ascribed ulterior motive, saying the governor may have planned to sell the schools to himself and cronies as they query the propriety of N250, 000 application form, when it should have set up a modalities for returning the schools to them(missionaries) in phases. After severe criticism, the governor conveyed a larger stakeholders’ meeting where all tendencies, including traditional rulers were present, in this forum he admitted to error in advertising for expression of interest without consultation with the relevant stakeholders.

It would seem the government is not interested in its social responsibility to the educational needs of Oyo State people in his desire to privatize education. This pecuniary consideration of the governor goes againstSection 18 of the Nigeria Constitution,Section 3 of the Universal Basic Education Act of 2004 and the rights of children to education.

Mr. Ajimobi needs to be reminded that education is a right and not a privilege, and in insisting on commercializing this inalienable rights of Oyo children, he has set out to erode the Awolowo legacy in education whose major plank was free education which Ajimobi himself may have been a beneficiary.

The governor may have shot himself in the foot inadvertently in his desire to set up another university when the one on ground is yet to be financially viable, when mind the convoluted logic of private ownership up to 90 percent and government equity of 10 percent in the proposed university to be cited in Ibadan. Many have said the ownership of the proposed university is Ajimobi himself and his friends, while we do not want to be part of this cheap blackmail, we advise that the governor comes clean in the whole process.

Already, a 31-man Committee on Participatory Management of Schools in Oyo State, led by Prof. Adeniyi Gbadegesin, Vice-Chancellor of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH Ogbomoso, was set up earlier by the governor, and in its report after the tour of 29 secondary schools in urban, semi urban and rural communities in the eight education zones, suggested that the state government lacked the capacity to solely manage and fund public schools across the state.

The Committee chairman, revealed while discussing the recent observations, reports and recommendations submitted to the state government after the tour of the public schools by the committee.

Recall that Governor Abiola Ajimobi, on July 12, 2016, inaugurated the Gbadegesin committee, charging them to look into the deteriorating state of public schools and come up with recommendations that will help reposition the standard of education in the state.

The LAUTECH VC said, “The report by the committee is a comprehensive one, which shows that the state’s public schools are in a sorry state, and government cannot do it alone, hence, the need to collaborate with relevant stakeholders to redeem the education sector. Education in the state needs urgent overhauling through participatory efforts of all stakeholders.

“We found out that there is data discrepancies about education in Oyo State. Also, there is mismatch of teachers and students. In essence, the teachers -students’ ratio is notevenly distributed. In some schools visited by the committee, teachers were not present, they were inadequate. While some were not unavailable. Some also had more furniture than the required and some didn’t have enough pupils to be standard schools. In some schools, there was over population of students.

“We were surprised that some vice principals do not teach anymore; whereas, in those days,evenprincipals had subjects they were teaching. There is need to improve the standard of education in the state.”

“Already, there is PPP in schools through individuals, old students’ network, PTAs, philanthropic organisations, international funding organisations, amongst others. We need more of this. What the government needs to do is to provide a formal structure and an enabling environment for private participation in school management,” Gbadegesin said.

Governor Ajimobi on tour of the proposed Oyo State University of Technology, in Ibadan, the state capital, with Governor Rochas Okorocha, of Imo State, was quoted as saying at the site of the university at Ajayi community, along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, “We have many Nigerian students in Ghana, United States of America and other foreign countries who are supposed to be here. They had to go out for the specific courses those foreign schools have to offer that are not common in most universities here. This is going to be an international university with courses that are normally not offered in most Nigerian universities.

“The focus of any technical education is industrialization. We believe that if people partner with us, there will benatural mutual gain. We have the Rochas Educational Foundation that has already signified interest in partnering in the technical university,”

“Some of the classrooms, library and administrative buildings have been built and completed by the Central Bank as its own contribution towards the university. Governor Okorocha visited the site because of the uniqueness of the project. You know he is not just a governor, he is an educationist who has schools all over Nigeria. So are many others who are also reaching out to us for partnership,” Ajimobi said.

It is sad and a shame that while undue attention is being placed on the new technical university, the prime University of Oyo people, Ladoke Akintola University, is allowed to wallow in rot, infrastructure decay, unending crisis. This action of the governor has lent fillip and credence to conspiracy theorists’ position, that Ajimobi has more than a passing interest in the new university.

Also worrisome another information that some students’ union leaders of LAUTECH are said to be in detention on the order of the governor for their temerity to tell him the truth, when he met with them recently in Ibadan, where in a swashbuckling imperial manner the governor assumed the mien of lord of the minor terrorizing his fief to submission.

We would advise the governor to first of all resolve the dispute with the students, ASUU and other affected parties in the Ladoke Akintola University for resumption of full academic life. This should be followed by a recommendation by all stakeholders on the way forward for public schools, the modalities for returning them to their previous owners. We as a newspaper are clearly against privatization of these schools. The argument for a new university is not cogent and persuasive enough, it smacks of vainglory and privatization of the education rights of the people of Oyo. It is a path the governor should avoid. We urge the governor to be mindful of the judgement of history.