In a speech yesterday in Benin, as part of events marking Edo Governor Monday Okpebholo’s 100 days in office, Edo State Commissioner for Education Dr. Paddy Iyamu revealed that he wept during his recent inspection of the majority of Edo public schools due to the deteriorating infrastructure, despite the World Bank’s N200 billion support.
He blamed the immediate administration of Godwin Obaseki for alleged mismanagement and insensitivity.
He said: “Obaseki’s administration put in place the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBEST) programme. If you want to look at it holistically, one of the major problems with the initiative is that you cannot be teaching students where the teachers are using tablets that cost Obaseki’s administration billions of Naira, but the students are sitting on the floor, without windows or doors in the classrooms. Then, what is the essence of such education?”
“In Obaseki’s EdoBEST programme, one teacher was teaching primary one, two, three and four. The primary one, two, and three would be in one class. When the teacher wanted to teach primary one and two, primary three and four students would wait inside the same class? Is that what is EdoBEST? So, the reviews that we are doing are not to witch-hunt anybody and they are not politically-motivated, but the right things must be done. We are solving the problems created by Obaseki’s administration.”
“Governor Okpebholo has seen it all. There is even a report that you will see in the coming days. Looking at a holistic view, the EdoBEST programme got over N200 billion. By this time, we are not supposed to be talking about classrooms. The N200 billion from the World Bank is a lot of money. That is $70 million. We met an appalling situation.”
The commissioner also showed displeasure over the decision of the immediate adminstration for not distributing to the state’s public schools, books donated by President Bola Tinubu.
He said: “A lot of things have been achieved in these 100 days. We have the case of over 10,000 books that were hoarded in the warehouse because the books had the face of President Bola Tinubu on them.”
“The immediate past administration refused to distribute the books. I can conveniently and comfortably tell you that we have distributed them for learning by our children. The intention is to make the lives of the benefiting students better.”
“Irrespective of party affiliation, one expects that the books ought to have been distributed. But Obaseki’s administration, for reasons best known to the officials, hoarded them, but forgot that they denied Edo children their rights. Their condemnable action did not affect President Tinubu, but affected Edo children. The bottleneck was removed.”
