Igbanke Grammar School Old Students Decry Rot in Alma-mater, Seek Obaseki’s Help

Igbanke Grammar School Old Students Association (IGSOSA), has urged the Edo State Government to declare a state of emergency on the school and help rebuild it.

The Chairman, Steering Committee of the association, Mr. Jacob Erhabor, in a statement, said the call became imperative to allow the Godwin Obaseki administration take necessary steps to remedy the neglect that the school has been subjected to by successive governments in the state for decades.

Erhabor, who expressed confidence in the capacity of the current administration in Edo State to reinvent the school, also charged the old students of the school to be prepared to contribute their quota to augment government’s anticipated intervention.

He said: “We the old students must of necessity step out of our comfort zones and engage the organs of government creatively and strategically with a view to turning things around and make the school become relevant in the scheme of things once again.

“Already, a high-powered delegation consisting of heads of some sub-committees of the association have paid a visit to the school to have an on-the-spot assessment of the situation on ground with a view to getting the members up to speed with the realities and the daunting task of restoring a school which between the late 1960s and 1990s was clearly the most sought-after grammar school in what is now known as Edo State.”

gbanke Grammar School, Igbanke which was opened in 1968, graduated its first set in 1972, and members recall how it was one of the best equipped schools in the old Midwest and defunct Bendel State which made Nigeria’s premier university, University of Ibadan, to establish an “experimental research station” of its Physics Department in the school.

“How come now that it is not any better than a glorified primary school?,” members of the association keep asking on their various social media platforms.

Another member of the association who spoke on condition of anonymity, said as a very responsible and law-abiding community of the state, “we the alumni of Igbanke Grammar School, Igbanke under the umbrella of IGSOSA are calling on the state government to give us the much needed sense of belonging by revamping this School to an acceptable standard without much ado”.