A couple of weeks ago, the Oyo State government ordered the reopening of over 20 schools that were closed down about 10 years ago following a boundary dispute between the four local government areas in the Oyo area of the state. IFEDAYO OGUNYEMI, who visited a couple of the affected schools, paints a picture of their present state, the life of children in the affected villages and the intervention of the state government so far.
FOLLOWING weeks of back-and-forth correspondence among the Oyo State government, stakeholders and professionals from the four local government areas that make up the Oyo zone, the state government summoned leaders and aggrieved parties involved in the boundary dispute involving Oyo West, Oyo East, Afijio and Atiba local government areas that culminated into the 10-year closure of 23 schools in the zone.
At the February 1 meeting, which was held at the Western Hall, Secretariat, Ibadan, the state capital, the deputy governor of Oyo State, Bayo Lawal, who doubles as the chairman of the State Boundary Committee, not only ordered the reopening of the affected schools and handed them over their control to the Ministry of Education, but also charged the chairmen of the LGs to ensure security and peace in their domains, warning that if there are any breaches of security, the leaders will be held responsible.
“I appeal to you, our elders and chairmen of the affected local governments, to consider the future of these children. The primary reason this meeting is held is for the schools that were closed for 10 years to reopen immediately. That is the message from the governor himself.
“We have engaged all the stakeholders, community leaders, honourable members, the chairmen of the various local governments, and we have agreed that schools must reopen in the interest of those children,” he said at the meeting.
The meeting was attended by the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Professor Salihu Adelabu; Chairman, Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board, Dr Nureni Aderemi Adeniran and chairmen of the four local governments and their traditional leaders, among other stakeholders.
As he urged members of the Oyo State House of Assembly, representing the affected constituencies to work with community leaders to ensure that children go back to school, he assured the stakeholders that the office of the surveyor-general will wade into the boundary dispute among the communities.
After that announcement was made, Sunday Tribune can report authoritatively that a delegation of the state government, comprising senior officials of the Ministry of Education, has visited all the schools affected by the boundary dispute. At the time of filing this report, a comprehensive report detailing the status of the affected schools had been compiled for submission to the governor.
The affected schools include Community Basic School, Obananko; Community Basic School, Laagbe; Pinnock Memorial Baptist School, Aba Epo Oluwatedo; Baptist Basic School, Oluwatedo; St. Luke Anglican School, Bada Idiyalode; L.A. Basic School, Ago Oyo; Community Basic School, Igbo Olose in Oyo West Local Government Area.
Others are Community Basic School, Adebimpe; Community Basic School, Obasere; St. Thomas Anglican School, Alabi Olorunda; St. Michael RCM, Apaara Village; Methodist Primary School, Ajagba; Bapt Central School, Oniyanrin; Bapt Primary School, Aguo; ADS Primary School, Baba Elesin; L.A. School, Lannite; L.A. Primary School, Gudugbu Orile; L.A. Primary School, Gudugbu; ADS Primary School, Aba Olori; ADS Primary School, Abujakan; L.A. Basic School, Alagbon; L.A. Basic School, Imeleke; Community Primary School, Igbo Aje and Community Primary School, Emi Abata in Oyo East Local Government Area.
Sunday Tribune gathered from government sources that upon the implementation of the report of the Ministry of Education’s team that visited the schools, academic activities are expected to resume in all the schools at the beginning of the new term which starts in April. This, it is believed, would help cut down the number of out-of-school children in the state.
Having sampled 9,946 households in 774 communities in the 33 local government areas that make up Oyo State, a 2018 report by the state government on out-of-school children estimated that 702,643 children between ages three and 18, representing about 21 percent of its estimated children population strength (3,351,969), were out of school.
In its breakdown of the data, the report showed that 267,609 children never attended school, while 435,035 others had dropped out, adding that more female children (21.7 percent) were out of school when compared with 20.2 percent of male children were out of school.
An analysis of the data provided in the report showed that the four local governments that make up the Oyo Zone had a total of 85,725 out-of-school students, representing 12.20 percent of the total OOSC in Oyo State. It also showed that Afijio had 26,112, Atiba LG had 14,341, Oyo East had 31,458 and Oyo West had 13,458 out-of-school children.
The report also listed major factors that contributed to the out-of-school phenomenon to include financial constraints and distance in urban and rural areas and added that the second most common reason that contributed to the out-of-school phenomenon in urban areas is orphanhood being vulnerable. The 2018 report also took into cognisance the boundary dispute which also led to the closure of schools in the Oyo Zone area of the state.
“Afijio and Oyo East LGAs in the Oyo zone experienced a high number of OOSC as a result of the boundary dispute in the LGAs. The climate of insecurity initially affected school attendance and later resulted in the closing down of the public primary schools in some communities within the LGAs. This implies that parents will not allow their children to attend school for fear of their safety and no teacher will want to teach in that environment,” the report noted.
In its recommendation, however, the report sought the quick resolution of the dispute, adding that the “boundary dispute in Oyo Zone of the state should be resolved and the displaced students enrolled in schools.”
Ahead of the formal reopening of the schools and resumption of academic activities in the villages in April, as projected by the state government, Sunday Tribune visited some of the schools to ascertain the travails of children and school pupils in the affected villages, assess the level of damage at the school and report on the anticipation of parents regarding the development.
Travails of pupils
One of the communities affected by the boundary dispute is Aguo, which is sandwiched between Fiditi and Jobele towns and is located about 24 kilometres and 34 kilometres away from the Obafemi Awolowo Train Station, Moniya and Ojoo Bus Terminal, Ibadan respectively.
Established around 1939 or thereabouts, the Baptist Primary School, Aguo is located about 80 metres away from the habitation of farmers and rural dwellers of Aguo, but children from the village and nearby communities do not attend classes in the school.
Aside from its toilet facility, only three out of four other classroom buildings were still standing. One such building is an Education Trust Fund (ETF) 2010 Intervention Project constructed by the Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB). Inside one of the buildings, Sunday Tribune found a government-issued first-aid box lying facedown. While walking through the school site, one could still perceive the smell of burnt bushes as the bushes were torched recently for clearer visibility of the structures.
For many years now, children of artisanal farmers located in the village and nearby communities and enclaves have stayed out of school. Sunday Tribune found out that many of the children cannot complete short sentences in English Language. Their predominant language of speech is their mother tongue: Yoruba for the indigenous children and Hausa for the settlers, most of whom are of northern extraction.
Only a few, whose parents still support the pursuit of Western education, travel about two kilometres before they get to the nearest school located at Jobele. Travelling such distances twice daily was the story of 13-year-olds Hannah Wabari and Jonathan Emmanuel, who alongside their siblings and many other children that were either born or that relocated to the village in the last ten years. Most of the time, they travel on foot.
Recounting her ordeal, Hannah, a Basic Six pupil and her sibling, Gideon, a Basic Three pupil, trek out of their house located inside Aguo village onto the Old Ibadan-Oyo Road before setting forth for school in Jobele. This they do every school day.
The same circumstances characterise Jonathan Emmanuel’s experience. His only luck was that his father, a farmer, takes him, and his younger siblings –Funmilayo and Joshua– to school on his bike on some days. On days his father is not able to, the Basic Six pupil treks the distance on foot before and after school hours.
Alternative school solution
These kids, mostly between the ages of four and early teens like Jonathan and Hannah, walk in groups and in droves from their various houses in Aguo village to and from school in Jobele. Many that cannot trek the distance like the Wabari’s and Emmanuel’s either stay at home, wander around the village or join their parents on their farmlands.
But since August 2023, the kids in the villages got a small reprieve in their arduous academic journeys following the establishment of a makeshift school, Aguo Free School by Global Deliverance Team (GLODET), a social impact mission based in Oyo town. The school is situated inside the Baptist Church serving the people of the village, which coincidentally is located beside their very own Baptist Primary School.
“They teach us English Language, Mathematics and all other subjects. Our house is not far away from here. Before this school started, my siblings (Funmilayo and Joshua) and I attended the school at Jobele.
“Sometimes we trek and sometimes we get to ride with our father on his motorcycle to school. But since they opened this school here, this is where we now attend,” Jonathan told Sunday Tribune.
One of the three teachers at the free school, Abiodun Oguniran, a theology school graduate, who also has a background in special education with learning disability and biology, teaches students in elementary classes (Basic 1, 2, 3 & 6) all subjects.
“We don’t have pupils in Basic 4 & 5 because some of them have relocated to other towns as a result of the crisis that led to the closure of the schools,” he told Sunday Tribune. “Those we met in Basic Five have now been promoted to Basic Six and we engaged them in some remedial classes before that.
“Our headcount is close to 60, but some are not present today for different reasons including health grounds.”
Speaking further on what they met on the ground at the point of starting the free school, Oguniran said: “Many of them just roamed about the village while some were helping on the farms before we started in August. So far so good, their parents have given us a good evaluation of their level of knowledge. When we started with them, those in kindergarten and Basic One classes could not read or write anything but with this intervention, some can now read in English.
“It’s not easy getting to sit them down to read or lock hands together to trace objects and letters. At the beginning of the free school, we had to run after them to convince them to attend classes because it’s not a system they are familiar with. That situation has changed now, coming to classes has become an integral part of their lives. Even if you ask them to come on weekends, they will come. The enthusiasm is now there.”
During Sunday Tribune’s recent visit to the village, over twelve pupils were in the primary section of the school. About ten others from the kindergarten section of the school flocked after Revd (Dr) Oladele Kolade, a retired Baptist-trained pastor, whom I had accompanied on the trip. They took turns to make a jest and casually report one or two of their colleagues whom they saw eating cassava at home to Dr Kolade. Apparently, he had warned them to steer clear of eating cassava.
Except for a few that just started attending classes, they all wore school uniforms bearing semblance to that of the Baptist Primary School, Aguo and other schools in the area, Sunday Tribune later learnt. The uniforms, books, furniture and other instructional materials were provided free of charge by the GLODET team led by Dr Kolade.
Dr Kolade had stepped out of church pastorate about two years ago to fully go into a social impact mission where he provides support (food items, financial support, and examination forms) to widows, orphans, underprivileged and indigent people in Oyo town.
It was on one of such routine trips to the Baptist Church in Aguo village in June 2023 that Kolade and the GLODET team heard that the children in the village lack access to education due to the closure of the village’s only public primary school.
“It was my first time visiting Aguo. I know the pastor there and I was visiting him when I realised that the government school in Aguo was overgrown by bushes, one of the buildings had collapsed and there was no activity taking place there.
“Out of curiosity, I asked the pastor about the school and he told me it was the state government that shut down the schools years ago alongside others because of the boundary dispute between the local governments. It was an embarrassing discovery for me.
“The pastor pointed at an elder of the church whose five children had never entered any classrooms in all their lives. That touched my heart and that was how we started the school there as well as the advocacy for the reopening of the schools.
“I visited other villages whose schools were equally locked and we thank God that advocacy has yielded positive results.”
Speaking further on the lives of the school pupils, Kolade said: “Some of the parents in the villages who have relatives and buildings in Oyo town took their children and wards to Oyo to continue their education. Those who could not afford to relocate to Oyo town ended up on the farms and the streets. Even many of those who relocated their wards preferred that they stay back in the villages so that they could benefit from their close relationships.
“There are a lot of new generation pupils in the villages without education. In Ajagba, I enlisted 120 primary school-age children when we wanted to start the Ajagba Free School intervention. We don’t have data on other villages aside from Ajagba and Aguo but during my visits to those other places (Idi Iyalode, Aba Oyo, Aba Epo, Oluwatedo, Igbo Olose, Laagbe and Obanako), I was shocked to see many children and people there without education.
“The most unfortunate aspect is that some of the children sent to learn trade and crafts by their parents after the closure of the schools have now turned into hooligans in Oyo towns and neighbouring villages. The social damage the closure has caused to the lives of the kids cannot be fully ascertained.
“We inaugurated the Aguo Free School in August 2023 and we spend not less than N100,000 on recurrent expenses monthly to sustain the schools. That’s aside from the construction of chairs, tables and expensive instructional materials. When we wanted to start another at Ajagba, the cost was too much. They have a place at Ajagba and when we did the enlistment, we had about 120 kids to cater for. Our concept was to give them the same treatment children in bigger cities enjoy by providing them free uniforms, textbooks, exercise books and any other thing they need.
“To replicate that in other villages requires a lot of finances. When those who wanted to assist us heard about the cost implication, they backed out. That pushed us to put pressure on the government since it is the government’s responsibility to provide education for those communities. Through the Oyo Global Forum, a neutral group of professionals in all four LGs, we were able to get the attention of the government. The interest of the forum is more of the future of the affected pupils who are yet to gain any form of maturity and not the fight for control.”
On the enlistment of teachers, Kolade said, “Because we wanted quality education, I was able to get mission-minded teachers with NCE certification and even degrees to teach the kids. It wasn’t until recently when I was trying to submit their names to the government that I realised that many of them are from Ogbomoso and Afijio extraction. What mattered to me was getting people who are passionate about the development of the children.”
Speaking on the challenges the team has interfaced with since the intervention started, he said: “It is morally disturbing when you see challenges that you can’t solve. When I got to St Luke Primary School at Idi Iyalode last week and saw the number of children without education there, I felt like starting the free school the next day but I don’t have that capacity. It was traumatic for me but it challenged the humanity in me. I can’t just close my eyes because the memories of those interactions and encounters keep flooding my mind and how to fix them.
“Many don’t see this issue the same way I do. Some even believe I have gotten foreign sponsorship, but I don’t. What we’ve depended on are my savings from my 25 years of pastoral ministry and additional contributions from some people that come in occasionally.”
He also noted that the hostilities in some of the affected communities were still rife as some youths and leaders doubted their intentions and perceived them as spies and agents in the cahoots of their opposition.
Travails of parents
One of the parents and Hannah’s father, Matthew Wabari, told Sunday Tribune that the minds of parents of kids from the village that used to attend school in Jobele were not always at peace each time they were in school because of the numerous vehicles that ply the road which the pupils trek on when going and coming back from school as well as the insecurity that now characterise the country.
“Whenever they were yet to return from school in Jobele, one’s mind won’t be at rest until you set your eyes on them,” he said. “But now, God has done us a miracle with this nearby school. Even if I am on the farm, my mind is at rest that they are in good hands and close to home.
“During the time they trek to Jobele, you can see some of them were getting lean because they trek under the rain and sun and we had to exclude the youngest among them from going to Jobele.”
He, however, added “We have seen a lot of improvement in the way some of them speak compared to when they didn’t go to school at all. Many of them cannot count the alphabet and numbers, but they can now do that. We were not charged a fee.”
Wabari now has four kids –Hannah, Gideon, Samson and Naomi– attending the Aguo Free School.
Another parent, Amuda Emmanuel, who equally has four kids in the free school, condemned the closure of the school but quickly said the villagers were helpless and couldn’t do anything about it because the schools belonged to the government.
“We were pained that we had to move our kids down to Jobele to be educated. Whenever we get back from farms, you must first wait for your kids to come back from Jobele before you can even think of what to eat.
“When rain falls, they get drenched in rainwater even before they get to the main road. We faced a lot that discouraged the pupils at the time,” Mr Emmanuel, a farmer told Sunday Tribune while appealing to the government to swiftly reopen the schools for the benefit of other kids in affected villages.
After leaving Aguo, Dr Kolade also led Sunday Tribune to Ajagba, one of the villages bordering Oyo State and Iwo in Osun State. About five minutes after entering the Oyo-Iwo Road through the Awe junction in Oyo Town, a young man hailed our vehicle, saying “please, help take these pupils to the village.” The time around then was 3:37 pm.
As the vehicle, a pick-up vehicle used for security patrol halted to a stop, eight primary and secondary school pupils jumped up from the edge of the dry and empty drainage they had sat and hopped onto the back of the truck.
The pupils, aged between four years and early teens, found space for themselves on the built-for-purpose seat at the back of the truck. Their uniforms indicated that they were from different public schools in the Awe area of Oyo and their destination: Ajagba Village, where we were equally headed. We later got to Ajagba where the schoolchildren alighted more than ten minutes later. If they hadn’t seen a safe enough vehicle like ours in time, they would have trekked the entire distance for one hour and 45 minutes or more.
Before this trip, sources in the village had told Sunday Tribune that pupils from Ajagba and other villages on both sides of the stretch of the road and its backwoods trek to and from their schools in Awe on days there were no free vehicles in sight. The vehicles they usually target are commercial vehicles –sometimes driven by unknown drivers– that ply Oyo-Iwo Road or known individuals from the communities passing through the road.
Using Google Maps, Sunday Tribune found that the distance from Ajagba to the nearest form of civilisation in Awe is 7.5 kilometres and 12 kilometres from Awe junction. By implication, pupils and kids from villages and communities deep inside the axis and close to the Osun State border will cover (travel and trek) more distance in search of daily education. The farther the distance of their houses from the main road, the more distance they will have to cover on foot.
At the Methodist Basic School, Ajagba Village, Sunday Tribune found out that the four buildings of the school, though still standing, were in terrible condition. Some of the roofs were sagging while others had caved in.
Just like in Aguo, two of the buildings accessed by Sunday Tribune were constructed under the Universal Basic Education Project (UBEP). A few days prior to the visit, the school was covered by thick and very tall bushes which have now been torched. Some farmers were seen burning another section of the school field during the visit.
The motto of the school is “Education, The Best Legacy,” as seen on the school’s signpost, but sadly, many kids in the villages surrounding the school, at the moment, do not have that legacy. A group of kids, numbering eight, from nearby villages and hamlets were seen playing under one of the trees located on the school premises.
Four very tall palm trees aesthetically stand at the entrance of the school. They were the only surviving kind from the 12 palm trees and 12 orange trees planted by students of the school to commemorate the independence of Nigeria on October 1, 1960. The choice of the iconic 12 trees was because the word independence had 12 letters, a former pupil told Sunday Tribune.
Sources further told Sunday Tribune that one of the teachers of the school also joined the pupils in digging the ground where the 24 trees were planted as a punishment for not writing their lesson notes as and when due.
It was also learnt that the school’s land measures about five acres because it has a standard football pitch where pupils partake in heats and selection process for sporting activities ahead of the inter-house sports at Awe.
History of crisis
Checks by Sunday Tribune showed that the boundary dispute rocking the four LGs in the Oyo zone was linked to the control of some of the geographical areas between and linking the zones. The checks also showed that the schools were just one part of the complex dispute. The main brunt of the issue was how to separate or integrate some Oyo villages and hamlets believed to belong to Oyo East and West LGs that were sandwiched between the present Afijio and Atiba LGs.
Information on the Oyo State government showed that the present-day Afijio (an acronym of Awe, Akinmoorin, Fiditi, Ilora, Imini, Jobele, Iware, Iluaje, Oluwatedo and Ojutaye which are the major towns that constitute the LG) was carved out of the defunct Oyo Local Government Area to become an autonomous council area in May 1989 by the Federal Military Government. Prior to this, Afijio had been created twice –first in 1964 as Afijio Provisional Authority and secondly, in 1981 when the entire area was merged with Oyo Local Government.
When it was time to design an administrative map for Afijio LG, it was found that some core Oyo villages, hamlets and enclaves were sandwiched between the towns that formed Afijio, thereby making it difficult for people of both extractions to cede control of the affected communities and areas to the other.
The disputes, threats and attacks that followed threatened the peace of the community as noted in the government report on out-of-school children (earlier referenced) and ultimately forced the hand of the government to shut down the schools in the interest of peace and safety of the schools.
Speaking on the genesis of the issues, Kolade believed the boundary dispute was not well managed by the community leaders and stakeholders involved because all the warring parties used to be one and a whole people that started as one local government. We only had Oyo Local Government. Where we have Afijio today used to be Oyo LG. This is the third time Afijio has been created.
“In 1964, there was a Bajomo Commission of Enquiry under the Western Government to look into the establishment of Afijio Provincial Authority and the commission recommended the establishment of Afijio but noted that they should not be merged with Oyo hamlets that were sandwiched between the Afijio demography. The idea was that Afijio would be a clustered community.
“Those hamlets predated the Alaafin Atiba who settled Oyo people in Oyo town and asked those in faraway hamlets and enclaves to join him in the main Oyo town. The settlements of those enclaves and hamlets are sandwiched between the geographical coverage of Afijio and that’s how the people from those villages have been operating before the crisis started.
“Before now, many of those schools were administered by their respective Oyo LGs as you can see on their flags, buildings and other structures there but there was an administrative mapping that ceded some of those sandwiched enclaves and villages to Afijio and the people there resisted, saying they are Oyo people. That was the genesis of the problem that eventually affected the schools on those lands. The schools were then shut down before the issue degenerated into a bigger crisis. In some places and schools, it led to physical confrontations.”
Sunday Tribune also met some locals including the Baale of the entry point into Ajagba Village, Yekinni Oyerinde, commonly called Tinunwe, who also shed light on the dispute and closure of schools.
Explaining the history of the only school in the village, Methodist Basic School, Ajagba village, Oyerinde said the missionary established the school in honour of his father’s younger brother, Chief Arowolo, who at the time was the cook for the missionaries, adding his father’s elder brother, Chief Omotola gave them the land where the school and the church were established side-by-side.
“They had a big church at Ajagba Apaara where my uncle served as a cook. It was because of him that they established the school here. The construction started in 1954 and the primary school was commissioned in 1955. Education in the school was free for all in line with Awolowo’s programme.
“All the neighbourhoods were mixed and there were no differences or rancour between Awe and Oyo people and there was no Afijio at that time. We were all one.”
He noted that the dispute between the leaders of the various communities that make up Oyo and Afijio over boundary issues festered to the extent that it affected the schools, adding that the various fora and discussions held over the years to resolve the issue proved abortive.
Explaining the genesis of the crisis, he said: “The issue didn’t start with the people in the villages. It started with the politicians who wanted to do administrative mapping.
“I am from the fifth generation in my family and I’m over 70 years old. None of my forebears lived less than 120 years before their deaths. Alaafin Atiba, in the 18th century, asked us to join him and the rest of the Oyo people in Oyo township and we moved in 1840. My great-grandfather led the people of Ajagba to Oyo town as the then Mogaji. Alaafin was the one who allocated the present-day Ajagba Quarters to us in Oyo town. The Alaafin also allocated the land for the present-day Fiditi to the warriors of Fiditi.
“That was before an agitation led to the establishment of Afijio. The people of Afijio then believed they were being shortchanged by the Alaafin and sought to stand apart from the Oyo Southern District Council, which at the time included Iseyin. The agitation led to the establishment of the Bajomo Commission of Enquiry that later birthed the Afijio Provincial Authority.”
In his overview of the condition of education in the area, Oyerinde condemned the fact that children in the village now don’t have proper access to education, adding some kids a few of them trek over six kilometres to school daily.
“If they are lucky in the morning, they hitchhike vehicles returning from transporting cassava to Port-Harcourt to take them to Awe. In the afternoon, most of the time, they aren’t always lucky; they trek,” he said.
When asked about parents’ regard for their children’s safety while hitchhiking in unknown vehicles or trekking kilometres along the road bordered by thick bushes, Oyerinde said: “Most of the time, they don’t target private vehicles but commercial vehicles, including taxis plying Iwo-Oyo Road.”
On the student population of the village, Oyerinde, a trained photographer-turned full-time farmer, said: “About 21 villages and hamlets surrounding where we are feed that school with students. Before the closure, we had over 200 pupils. When I was asked to enlist kids in the villages last December, I saw over 100 kids in just five villages. That same list is what I provided the government with recently.
“We’ve now had more settlers, particularly from the Fulani communities, whose children are supposed to be in school. The names of those Fulani kids are included in the list I generated. Some of them have been here for over 40 years. When you get to the settlement that they are, they are gradually growing bigger than some of our communities.
“What we now have as schools is now an Islamic school as well as the one started by GLODET that some of the pupils attend,” he said.
Search for former pupils of affected schools
Government sources told Sunday Tribune that as of the last count before the closure of the schools, Baptist Primary School, Aguo had 77 pupils; ADS Primary, Abujagan had 213 pupils; Baptist Primary School, Gudugbu had 224; Community Basic School, Obasere had 73 pupils while Community Primary School, Igbo Aje had 76 pupils.
Sunday Tribune thereafter asked around to speak with former pupils of the schools, but all efforts proved abortive. Local sources and village heads that Sunday Tribune spoke to in the two villages visited disclosed that many of the former pupils have relocated out of the villages and out of reach. One of them noted that a four-year-old at the time of shutting down the school about ten years ago would be 14 years old today, and possibly out of the primary school age.
When asked about the former pupils, Tinunwe as Oyerinde is commonly called, who himself graduated from the school in 1962, recalled how he gave a scholarship to one of the pupils of the school before the closure, having drawn an impressive art depicting an Imam holding a rosary (tesbir) on a wall.
“I used to join their Parent-Teachers Association meeting as a community leader to remind the pupils of the benefits of education. If I didn’t go to school like I did, I wonder if they would involve me in the security affairs of the four Oyo LGs as I am today.
“I asked who made the art and was told it was a Primary Three pupil. I called for him and told his parents to hand him over to me to take care of. I fed him and was responsible for his education for about two years. After the schools were shut, he went back to his parents and I doubt if he ever continued his education because he later started a road-side mechanic workshop with a focus on motorcycles. He comes to the farm occasionally.
“Towards the end of last year, I was told someone came to harvest and steal maize, I asked them to let the suspect go without knowing who he was. Weeks later, returned with some of his other fellows to steal again at midnight and was caught. They banished him from the village and demolished his roadside workshop.
“I went there to see who the person was and was told it was the same pupil I took in to care for years ago. I was deeply disappointed and devastated. That’s one example of how the pupils turned out. Only God knows how other pupils turned out. More than 50 per cent of them were stranded at the time. I won’t be surprised if the many louts we see engaging in thuggery are some of the pupils from the schools.”
How govt swung into action
Now that the state government had ordered the reopening of the schools and subsequently handed them over to the ministry of education, it is expected that many pupils who have now come of school age in the villages, hamlets and neighbouring communities will proper begin their quest to become great in life.
Speaking to Sunday Tribune in his office on the outcome of the visitation to the affected schools, the Director, Planning, Research and Statistics at the Ministry of Education, Dr Tunde Odekunle, said the team went around to assess the condition of the schools ahead of the formal reopening in April 2024.
“We looked at the situation of the structures inside the schools to see if they are habitable or otherwise so as to be sure that if pupils resume, they will be same in such classrooms they will be put. We, however, found out that some of the buildings are dilapidated and need rehabilitation while some are still manageable. We also found out that the site of the schools requires fumigation because when you’ve left a building for many years, there is a possibility that reptiles may find it as an abode and we can’t just put small children in such situations.
“We have noted that the entire schools require government attention -fumigation, renovation and reconstruction. Some of the school fields have been turned into cassava farms. We have secured the contacts of two anchor persons from all the villages feeding each school to liaise with the government.
“Some of the villagers adopted some measures and put some children in churches and community buildings to teach the pupils temporarily but the conditions were not conducive for all the children and in some of the cases, their teachers had no checks on time spent with the children, probably because of the distance from which they came. We discovered that the children have suffered a lot because we saw some of them engaged on their parents’ farms; the cost of taking them to faraway schools was too much for the parents.
“We are going to hold a stakeholders’ meeting where the way forward will be determined and made public. Once that meeting is done in earnest, by the coming term, work should start in those schools. The government is ready to deploy workforce to the schools,” he explained.
He also disclosed that the government was incorporating the 23 Oyo schools into the Better Education Service Delivery For All Additional Funding Transforming Education Systems at States Level (BESDA AF-TESS) project that is ongoing.
He said: “In the ministry‘s ongoing efforts to capture out-of-school children, we are incorporating this into that exercise by virtue of what we’ve now found out. We will go out again to sensitise the parents and guardians on the importance of educating their wards. That sensitisation will be done before the reopening of the schools.
“There’s still a need for synergy and discussion between the leaders of affected communities because they need to realise that if we continue to engage in this crisis, we are mortgaging the lives of these innocent children. We noticed elements of grudge when we visited some of the communities. We are pleading that they bury their hatchets for the development of these children.”
When asked about the population of pupils expected at the schools once they reopen, he said the government is expecting double the number of pupils that were in the schools at the time they were closed.
“We have the data of pupils in each of these schools before the schools were closed. So, that gives us an insight into what’s likely to be the enrollment rate when the schools reopen. You know that after 10 years of closure, more children must have been given birth to in those communities. We should expect times two of the last enrolment figure. We should expect the teenagers in the communities to come back to school as well to join the kids that are just growing up,” he said.
He also disclosed that former pupils who have not been to school since the closure would be rehabilitated and reabsorbed into the schools.
Explaining further, Odekunle said: “I told you there is one project that there is a BESDA AF-TESS project in the ministry which caters for out-of-school children. Though we have already selected some schools to service by virtue of what is happening in the Oyo constituency, we will include them in that particular project. We will sensitise the children and the parents on the importance of education.
“We will also educate the teachers so as not to breed truants. A teacher in such an environment must be patient and friendly because the environment may be charged and the pupils may run back home. All of these things will be put in place by the government.”
On the possibility of getting teachers deployed to the communities, he said: “Many of the schools were established in the 1950s and the schools benefited from late Obafemi Awolowo’s free education legacy whereby teachers were deployed there without issue. I don’t think issues would arise now. We still have development-minded teachers in the service today who were part of the communities before the schools were closed. I won’t be surprised if the villagers themselves offer those teachers nice accommodations in their domains. If you go to other remote places in the state today, there are still teachers there.”
When asked about the number of out-of-school children in the state, the director said: “We have tasked our local education offices to open a register of out-of-school children across the state, going by the BESDA AF-TESS project. By the time we wrap up in a couple of months, we’ll know the estimate for the state. However, we have started sensitising people through radio jingles and short dramas showcasing the importance of education to parents across the nooks and crannies of the state.”
Relief and expectations
Meanwhile, some of the parents at Aguo and Ajagba villages visited conversely told Sunday Tribune that they were happy that the schools would now be reopened following the intervention of the government.
They believe their minds can be at rest whenever their children and wards are in school that are going to be close to their house compared to when they journey to faraway places for education.
This was also confirmed by Tinunwe who said the parents started jubilating in December when he did the enlistment of the pupils.
“When they later heard on the radio recently that the government had ordered the reopening of the schools, they were happy it was becoming a reality,” Oyerinde also called Tinunwe said. “They were very happy. The Fulanis even came to tell me their kids will be available to return to classes.”
Buttressing this, Kolade told Sunday Tribune that many parents have started calling him to express their gratitude because the government swiftly ordered the reopening of the schools.
He also commended the state government and particularly the Ministry of Education for swiftly taking action by visiting all of the schools to assess the structures, adding that it was a sign that the government wanted to do something very fast.
He also confirmed to Sunday Tribune that the government delegation travelled every other day to many of the village schools because those areas are not motorable and he used his sources in the areas to monitor them.
Speaking in the same vein, Alaguo of Aguo, Ademola Oyediran, told Sunday Tribune that, during the visitation by the representatives of the Ministry of Education, they assured the government that the pupils would be back in classrooms immediately after the schools reopen.
He said though recalling the older pupils back to school may be difficult because they have gone into trade and artisanship, he said the young ones who have come of age will be available to resume school.
He also called on the government to renovate the existing structures so as not to endanger the lives of the children when schools resume.
Though he didn’t give an exact figure of the number of pupils expected back to school, he noted that the pupils currently attending the free school in the area would be ready to return to school, adding that many others in adjoining communities will equally return to classrooms.