- By Kamil Opeyemi
Former Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola on Saturday told students of the Akoko Anglican Grammar School, Arigidi Akoko in Ondo State how he tried to recreate the Obafemi Awolowo development agenda as part of a plan to ensure greater good of the people of Osun.
Aregbesola was Governor of the South-Western state between 2010 and 2018.
Speaking at a reception organised by the old students association of the school on Saturday, he highlighted many of the programmes of his administration.
In a speech titled “I am just a rave”, Aregebsola said schools at the time he was there taught ethics and values.
“This is a testament to a remarkable public education policy and programme of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his people oriented political platform.
“When I became governor in Osun, I sought to replicate this idea. Our administration built 11 state of the art 3,000 capacity model secondary schools, in addition to rehabilitating and upgrading the existing ones. Each school has 72 classrooms which can each comfortably accommodate 49 students and six rooms for study groups. It is equipped with six laboratories, 36 toilets separated equally for boys and girls, two libraries for science and arts each, facility manager’s office, a bookshop and a sick bay. We introduced Opon Imo the tablet of Knowledge; a digital education tool, ethics and discipline in public schools and even established a state-wide agency on public school discipline. We introduced calisthenics and school feeding and health programme.
“The first one we put into use was Wole Soyinka Government High School in Ejigbo, in 2015. By the time we left in 2018, 11 were fully operational,.With each school graduating 1,000 students every year and a combined output of 11,000, we should have not less than 44,000 world beaters now, if the programme had been sustained.These schools were designed to produce world beaters and the fruits were already coming out. A student from our school topped the Senior Secondary School Examination while another topped JAMB examination shortly after we left.”
Aregbesola however expressed the regrets that his successor couldn’t continue with the tempo. Aregbesola was succeeded by his then Chief of Staff, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola. An intra-party squabbles that emerged shortly take over continued from 2018 till 2022 when Oyetola was defeated by the now incumbent Governor Ademola Adeleke.
He continued in his speech, “Nevertheless, our commitment then was from the understanding that there is no alternative to a sound public foundation education. All governments must therefore know that no matter how attractive private schools may be, they will never be able to displace government funded public foundation education schools, if we really want to provide education to all the children and stimulate development from bottom up.
“It is a dream we must never give up on.I will remain appreciative of all my friends and associates that have followed me unflinchingly in my career in politics and public administration in Lagos, Osun and across the country.I thank most sincerely the leadership and members of this association and all who made today’s event such a roaring success. I owe you a debt of gratitude.I thank all my friends, political associates and supporters who have come here to honour me from far and near.”
He said more distinguished ex-students are the stars who deserve even greater celebrations .
He listed them to include Pa Olugboja pioneer Principal and Chief H T Adelegan, “the Principal during my time, who introduced us to international politics with his daily briefing on the 1971 Arab/Israeli war. ”
He said staff at the time were fantastic teachers adding that the schools across Western Region at the time taught and instilled ethics, social etiquette, morals and leadership and produced these great people.