Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke and his predecessor, Gboyega Oyetola, have traded words over educational neglect and increasing rate of out-of-school children in the state.
While Oyetola, who is now the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, anchored his argument on the sacking of 1,500 teachers his administration recruited to augment shortage of teachers by Governor Adeleke, Oyetola said parents have refused to take their children to school because of lack of teachers.
Oyetola, while speaking through his former Special Adviser on Political Affairs, Sunday Akere, expressed worry over the surge in statistics, as he implored Adeleke not to politicize the education sector in the state.
He explained how he engaged the services of 1,500 teachers, but that they had been fired politically by Adeleke.
“My advice to the government is that it should not play politics with education,” he declared.
But, reacting, Adeleke, through his Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi, on Sunday, claimed Oyetola committed many atrocities when he was the governor of the state, and therefore asked President Bola Tinubu to be cautious of his dealings with the Minister, saying Oyetola “portends bad omen.”
Adeleke attributed the huge number of out of school children in Osun to years of neglect of the education sector inherited from Oyetola administration, listing upcoming recruitment of 6,000 teachers as part of the administration’s three pronged approach to redressing the situation.
“It is on record that the last administration in a series of post-election booby traps employed over 10,000 workers to make the state ungovernable for the incoming Adeleke government, a development the new government promptly addressed with six executive orders to restore normalcy.
“If the former Governor was really interested in addressing the rot in the education sector, how come he waited till he lost the election before rushing through recruitment of teachers against due process and extant laws?
“If the so-called recruited teachers were retained, how would that have positively impacted on poor learning conditions, dilapidated school infrastructures, parental economic crisis and overwhelming dislocations within the school environment which are the real reasons for the high number of out of school children inherited from the Oyetola government?
“As part of efforts to clear the mess of the past government, the state government organized an education summit which proffered far reaching recommendations covering all sub-sectors of the state education system.
“A white paper has now been approved by the state Executive Council for the implementation of the recommendations of the summit,” he said.
“With all humility and sincerity, President Bola Tinubu, should put blood relationship sentiment he has with Oyetola apart and be nationalistic enough, to embrace the fact that, with the likes of Oyetola in his cabinet, the coast is not too good for him enough in the minds of the people of Osun state, because, Oyetola’s present state of mind is nothing short of a drowning man, who will always catch at a straw.
“The sins of Oyetola, officially and unofficially, as a former Governor in Osun state, are so humongous and unpardonable that, for many years to come, the people of this state, will never forget in a hurry the many wrong policies and actions which his administration imposed on the people of Osun State.
“Like we earlier advised and warned, President Bola Tinubu should be wary of such bad influence like Mr. Oyetola in the present Federal Executive Council. His type portends a bad omen for anything good and developmental, not only in Osun state but Nigeria as a whole,” he posited.
