07022021 - Herdsmen from Oyo Enugu Niger others heading to Kano

PAGE 20 —SUNDAY VANGUARD, FEBRUARY 7, 2021
OSUN EDUCATION:
‘We are seeing the gains of
the ‘killing’ of Aregbesola’s
policy in billions’
By Demola Akinyemi, Ilorin
Alhaji Jamiu Babatunde Olawunmi
is Special Adviser on Education to
Governor Gboyega Oyetola of
Osun State. In this interview, Olawunmi
speaks on the state of education in Osun
among other issues. Excerpts:
Since the education policy in Osun was
reversed, what has been the situation?
Osun State government has fared
excellently in the area of education. One
of the indices that qualified my governor
to be nominated as Governor of the Year
2020 by a newspaper was because
education was very prominent among the
three issues they considered where he
excelled among his peers. That award was
instructive because this was the same
newspaper that earlier published that
Osun spent over N90bn out N100bn to
pay debt; if the governor of a state that
was almost insolvent and no longer
sustainable now emerged the Best
Governor of the Year from the perspective
of that newspaper, it is very good for us
because it means the governor knows
what he has set out to achieve and he is
achieving that. If we look at the reviewed
policy, the new uniform, name change, the
6-3-3-4 issue, the pre-school issue and
early childhood education development,
these are what the education policy was
all about. In terms of uniform, you cannot
imagine the economic consequence as
every school has its own uniform restored.
That has generated close to N3bn
businesses for tailors and cloth sellers. The
uniforms have actually turned the
economy of Osun for better. That is why
the National Bureau of Statistics said we
have a lot of wealth generated to the
economy in Osun; actually we have a lot
of wealth that is going round because of
the dynamism introduced by Governor
Oyetola. Tailors association and other
stakeholders have been coming to pay
thank you visit and I know that, very soon,
they will hold a rally for the governor to
show their support for him. The second
one, when you look at the name of the
schools…let me give you an instance of
Ilesa Grammar School which was
founded in 1934; if we now say Ilesa
Government High School established in
1934, are they the same? No. That’s one
of the reasons one of the old students
associations went to court and the number
of vice chancellors Ilesa Grammar
School has produced is more than any
other secondary school in Osun. The
importance of this is that we have high
net worth people coming to endorse the
performance of the governor. We have
constituted boards of governors of those
schools and old students are chairmen.
So, where you have boards of governors
like that, those petty things that take
money out of government pocket are
being taken over by the boards. They now
have influence to look at what the teacher
teaches and judge whether that teacher is
fit or not. They also have
influence to look into the
school governance, look at
the competence of the
principal. And if you look
at it by and large, the issue
of cultism has gone down.
When last did you find
students throwing stones or
carrying out any violent
act? So our review has
brought a lot of dividends
such that you only imagine
that the taste of the
pudding is in its eating. We
running the schools, we
know how relieved we have
become as compared to
when we got to office.
So what is the agenda of
the era for education for
2021?
Reviewing the policy is a
very big achievement for
Governor Oyetola because
something that cuts across every home is
education whether you attend private or
public school. The private schools are
service providers, they are doing it under
our supervision, they obtain license from
us. They are also helping government
educate the people; that is why they are
very critical stakeholders. If you are doing
well in public school and you are not
doing well in private school, you are not
doing well. In terms of governance,
supervision, cooperation with service
Students are the
beneficiaries and
they are happy,
it’s no longer that
a boy like Victor
Moses will attend
Baptist Girls High
School
•Babatunde
providers, things are going
on well and that is a very
huge achievement for the
Oyetola administration.
Nonetheless, we are not
resting, we want to
actually leave a mark that
will be peculiar to this
government. Let me share
this with you. There was a
committee from the Vice
President’s Office in
December. They came to
check critical areas of
social service in the state.
They looked at our
education, agriculture,
infrastructure and health.
When they got to this
place, I said we have
something that other
states in Nigeria do not
have, they couldn’t believe
it and I was just coming from the annual
National Education Conference in Abuja
where I also showed what we are doing in
Osun that stood us out there. I said they
could get to my class now on their phones
and watch mathematics, English,
agriculture, they couldn’t believe it. And
the website there is www.osun.csm.ng. I
was trying to open it but the network was
bad on my phone. One of those who came
from Abuja opened it and he got into
mathematics class. If I had done it, it
could amount to maybe I preloaded it on
my phone but it was on his phone. I told
him to go to English class and it was audio
visual and you can also do assessment and
obtain mark, that’s what we have done in
Osun. And we are going to face digital
literacy squarely this year. It is part of the
new normal occasioned by Covid-19. If
the global economy had envisaged that
we would have coronavirus, everybody
would have moved to the so-called new
normal. But as we speak today, anybody
coming into the new normal now will
meet Osun at the forefront. And that is
what we are going to focus on. Osun
education will become a tourist
attraction this year and I know a lot of
states will come here to learn what we
have been able to do. It is based on cloud
system and we are doing excellently well.
Very soon, my governor will be
inaugurating this aspect of education and
what he will do is going to be legendary. I
won’t let the cat out of the bag now, but I
know that in no distant time when we
launch it, everybody will start to come
here to learn what we have been able to
do.
In the area of infrastructure, what are
the efforts of the government in New
Year so that your desire to improve the
standard of education in the state can
be fully achieved?
This year we are going to embark on
renovation of schools. We have quite a
number of schools that are begging for
attention because of the state of disrepair
they are. Despite those gigantic buildings
we have around, we still have a lot of
deficit. Even though no government can
easily complete every school, we will put
everything in better shape. But we are
going to start and we have close to one
hundred schools to renovate because
there are some that are roofless, so we
are starting with renovation and then
invest heavily in digital literacy. We are
also going to invest in training, that is
human capacity development, we are
going to train principals, teachers, and
sponsors from Canada are also joining
us for the training. Also this year, the
governor is looking to remodel certain
aspects, especially the pre-school age, we
want to make sure that we key into the
UNICEF agenda which we earlier
jettisoned.
How have these developments
impacted on students?
Students are the beneficiaries and they
are happy, it’s no longer that a boy like
Victor Moses will attend Baptist Girls
High School. If it is a girls’ grammar
school, we only have girls there. Students
themselves are seen in their uniform, now
it just like when you go out of Nigeria
and you see your flag, meaning the
patriotism and heroism will be renewed
and that is what we have among the
schools, areas where we are working
harder is to make sure that those schools
progress. For instance, schools that were
running senior secondary schools alone
before we reviewed the policy, all of a
sudden, are you going to manufacture
JSS 1, 2 and 3 to join them? We have the
SSS class, we now have JSS 1. The school
that was running junior school alone, that
had only JSS 1, 2, 3, has now SSS1.
•Continues on www.vanguardngr.com
Pastor Bakare: My encounter with Sunday Igboho
•Says Yoruba activist is a freedom fighter, but…
• ‘I knew we were face to face with a major crisis’
By Kennedy Mbele
Pastor Tunde Bakare, Serving Overseer of
Citadel Global Community Church, speaks
on his telephone conversation with Yoruba
activist Sunday Adeyemo (aka Sunday Igboho)
who gave Fulani herdsmen operating in Ibarapa
local government area of Oyo State seven days
ultimatum to quit the area following killings
allegedly linked to the herdsmen, describing
the activist as a freedom fighter. Bakare spoke
during a television programme in Lagos.
The moment Sunday Adeyemo gave 7 –day
ultimatum to Fulani herdsmen and to the chief
of the Fulani in Oyo, I knew we were face to
face with a major crisis. I heard him say over
and over again that former Governor Rashidi
Ladoja “is my father, is my mentor, he is the
one that blessed me”. So I knew that if anyone
had a mentor and he has to be approached,
that mentor should be able to put a stop to
what we consider as excess. But as God would
have it, while I was trying to reach out to
former Governor Ladoja who I have met
personally in times past and whose number I
have, an avenue occurred through an AIG who
happened to know someone that knows
Sunday Igboho. So I placed a call to him, he
didn’t pick the call but I left a message that I
would like to speak with him. He graciously
called me back and we were able to speak
and we agreed that he will be coming to Lagos
to meet with me alongside his team and I also
got our own people ready so that about five
people here and five at that end, we could sit
and resolve this crisis. And he agreed totally.
But the day he was to come, his father took ill
and he had to rush him to hospital in Iseyin or
thereabouts. And he called and said
he would not be able to come. And I
said “family first and health first”.
And I did not only pray with him, I
also prayed with his father who also
graciously thanked me and said “e
jowo e ba wa da si oro yi o”
(help to resolve this
matter). And I found that
the tension was already
being detonated by the
involvement of men of
goodwill who were able
to reach out to Sunday •Igboho
Igboho. There may be
other ways of resolving
this crisis other than
issuing death threats and beating drums
of war. Thank God that the situation has a bit
calmed down but it is not yet completely
resolved. We will by God’s grace do all God
has given us the power to do as well as other
men of goodwill. My intervention and that of
•Bakare
other well meaning Nigerians is to
de-escalate the tension by the
challenge or the 7-day ultimatum
he gave and to try as much as
possible to reset the narrative
before it gets out of hand.
Please let’s be careful not
to tear this country apart.
And I am appealing to all
men of goodwill to rise to
the occasion. There are
four issues involved in this matter and, by the
grace of God, as soon as I have the opportunity
I will bring them to the attention of Mr.
President. And I believe his ministers and those
in government are doing the same thing. One
of the issues is open grazing. I think it is
obsolete and it should end because the nations
of the world have gone beyond this. I was in
Glasgow, I was in Israel, there are so many
things that we can do about agricultural
pastoralism that will stop all the trouble in
our land. We have lived with the Fulani and
the Fulani have lived with us across this land.
We must separate agricultural pastoralism
from the second thing, terrorist issues in the
forest. We have to be careful about
indiscriminate violence. We must separate
terrorists in the forest from agricultural
pastoralists or those who are invading other
peoples’ farms, they must be stopped. If our
laws would not stop them and property rights
not respected, then the government is not
doing what it should do. What government
should do is to pass laws, property laws must
be respected. And all these pastoralists need
to be registered so that we can know who they
are and where they are going. It is a private
business, it must not generate the kind of heat
it is generating right now. Igboho looks like a
man who wants to fight for his people because
they were murdered, they were raped but he
must operate within the ambit of the law.
Indiscriminate violence is an ill wind that will
blow no one any good. And remember before
you unleash, there are Fulani in the South-
West and there are Yoruba and other ethnic
nationalities in their own (Fulani)
communities too. And if they would open fire
on them, it will be so indiscriminate and it is
an ill wind. We must avert it before it gets out
of hand.