THE Senate has rated Edo State among the three fastest developing states in the country. Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, Senator Uche Chukwumerije, who gave the assessment during a courtesy call to the governor in Benin City, yesterday, said the improvement of the welfare of the people is determined by the character of the political leadership.
According to him, “in terms of resources, you are not as rich as the richest states or the first segment of the richest in the country, but in terms of achievements, you share with two other states that feat of being the fastest developing state in the country”.
He said “we are here as the Committee, overseeing the most distressed sector of the country and yet a sector that is most pivotal to the future of the country”.
Chukwumerije noted “when therefore we have a governor that has the trait which has been proved in the theatre of popular struggles you see yourself particularly excited because, if you transfer that trait into education, you would help us to bring into education the kind of transformation which anybody who believes in the future of the country would wish for.”
The Committee Chairman expressed delight that “luckily for us we don’t need to go far to preach that because recently, we get returns every month and from the testimony we got from State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and the little we have seen of Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) books has convinced us beyond all reasonable doubt that the Education Sector in Nigeria and in general and Edo in particular is lucky to have this governor in charge.
“From the little we have seen, before you came into office, there was this long arrears of deficiency by Edo State in paying counterpart funding and accessing their own Federal side of it.
And when you came, in one fell swoop, you paid those arrears and accessed its own share of Federal money”, adding that “this has resulted to phenomenal transformation in the education sector”, he explained.
He counseled the governor to “continue to give the dynamic leadership you are giving to education. Continue to show the light as you are doing in Edo and we are looking forward to the day when Edo becomes the first state in Nigeria, in all indices of educational development”.
The Senate Education Chairman, who congratulated the governor on his electoral victory said “as young as you are, you are already a legend in your time”. Responding, Comrade Oshiomhole said he appreciated the oversight functions of the Senate, adding that what distinguishes democracy from dictatorship is the right of the people to question and interrogate their leaders. According to the Governor “let me thank you for your kind words. Let me assure that those kind of sentiment will give us the impetus to continue what we are doing and even to improve on it”, adding that having gone round, your findings would enable the Federal Government give education the attention it needs.
“When I arrived here, virtually all our schools or most of them were without roofs and we had potholes in our classrooms and when it is threatening to rain, parents ran to pick their children. The result over time was that primary education was privatised by default because the state was not investing and, parents had to turn to private schools” he explained.
Oshiomhole noted “I being a product of free primary education, the least we can do is to restore the leader and that explains why we are aggressively rebuilding our public schools”.
The governor explained that government had abolished the payment of all forms of charges in public schools, adding that “we have eliminated all forms of discrimination in our educational system.
“The future of Nigeria is not in the quality or quantity of our solid or liquid minerals, but is basically a function of our human capital including the quality of our political leadership. And if we do not make the right investment today we will pay dearly for it, he noted.
Oshiomhole spoke of the need for more engagement between the States and the Federal Government so that policy formulation and implementation can be tidier.
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