Femi Majekodunmi: Gov Abiodun Will Get 2nd Term Easily

Dr. Femi Majekodunmi is the Chairman, Ogun State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB). In this interview with THISDAY, he talks about the various interventions of the Dapo Abiodun-led administration in the state, especially in education, and concludes that the governor will get a 2nd term easily. Except:

The new academic session has commenced, how prepared is your Board to provide necessary learning aid to both new in-takes and old pupils?

I can tell you just like the motto of the scout of those days, “Be prepared”. We are always prepared and that is one thing that I have inculcated into every staff in the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB). We have to plan ahead. We have got to prepare for eventuality, and we cannot but thank our Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, enough in this regard. He is like that. He plans ahead and he is prepared for every eventuality. It is reflected in SUBEB as well. Go to any public school today, especially primary school, you would see clean premises. You would see teachers wake up to their duties. We monitor them from time to time. The important facilities have always been there. And our dear Governor has always supported us in monitoring activities, in checking and re-checking many of these things that are doing in a long way to get the schools always prepared for the services rendered to the learners.

 Has the State Government not done enough in terms of benches and desks for pupils, considering cases of pupils sitting on bare floors in some public schools?

One thing that I would tell you about and that is, we have not excluded it from what I just said. From time to time, we supply chairs and tables. A lot of efforts have always been put in place by this current administration to resolve all these problems. The present government took over at a point where not much was done to SUBEB. One of the things that Governor Abiodun did was to put in the needed money. We are talking about billions of naira to solve many of these problems. That is, building new structures. You can see yellow roofs all over the places and rehabilitation of many structures.

Don’t forget that Ogun State is the Gateway to education in this country. It is a place where Western education really started. You may recall many of the medical doctors, lawyers, accountants and others who are still professionals came from Ogun State. Many of these schools that we are talking about, especially schools under our own supervision or purview were built over 100 years ago. At that time, when we came in, over 900 projects were put in place, because of one problem or the other. Some of them were nearing completion. When I came in, and that was the job I was saddled with, putting right all the inadequacies of the past administration. All the wrongs of the past. The government before us did little or nothing. I can boldly say that, because Dapo Abiodun did a lot and he is still doing it.

Just recently, he paid a lot of money into the marching grants. And very soon, we will be having series of buildings coming up for public primary schools. We will have more chairs, more toilets, fences and things like that. All these things are being done to solve the problems that we have been talking about. It is a situation nobody can solve in one year, nobody can even solve in ten years, but Dapo Abiodun has done a lot. We cannot but commend him. So, this is the situation. And he is still doing it.

Dapo Abiodun is one that wants even distribution of amenities, of projects, welfare and so on. All we expect government to provide, he has vowed not put everything in one senatorial district and that is what he is doing. And yet, he has done more than anybody has done in the capital city. I had thought that the capital city would be neglected, not so. He is doing everything possible and he almost wants everything to be attended to, despite the paucity of funds. Check the various divisions or the various senatorial district, everywhere work is ongoing. And when you come to Basic Education, where I hold forte, money is being spent everyday to take care of our pupils, our leaners, to take care of our teachers. Training programmes are going on consistently. Even extra-curricular activities like, sports, agriculture and so on are all ongoing.

Nothing is being left unattended to, and more will come in place very soon because money has been made available, like I told you earlier. He is a tireless governor. People use to say, he is the best Governor. He is the most hardworking governor in this country. And I agree with that.

Is education still free in Ogun State public schools?

Very much so. We make sure that parents are not made to pay any school fees. Not only that, we frown at, and we made it illegal for any school or teacher to levy any pupil for anything because in the past, occasionally, we have contributions of N500 for one thing or the other. We have always stopped situations like that. And all teachers today, they don’t do anything contrary because the government is providing virtually everything for them. We even give schools what we call running cost. Recently, this running cost was doubled. You can imagine the care that the governor has committed himself to. So, every head teacher in schools, we give them substantial of money to take care of minor situations, emergency situations because these pupils are young and they will have to be protected.

Ogun State has produced great icons in different walks of life which makes it the education capital of this country. But in the past one decade the quality of education has witnessed a sharp drop. What other approaches has the state government brought to bear to restore the lost glory?

May be, the right thing is to talk of Nigeria as we have found ourselves, nowadays. Gone are the days when Nigeria, be it our universities or polytechnics, have foreign students coming from different parts of the world. All these things have gone down. The quality of education has declined in the country, generally, for reasons we all know. I am one of them that is very concerned about this situation. With all efforts on deck, we will overcome it.

The 2023 General elections are approaching. As a leading figure in Ogun State’s All Progressives Congress (APC), how prepared is your party, considering the gale of defection into either the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or, the African Democratic Congress (ADC)?

This is a straightforward question, the way I see it, and there are straightforward answers to it. The only thing that is not true is the area you said many people had left APC to either PDP or any other party. More are coming, may be, you don’t realise this. Those of us who are together in the APC, that later decided to form another party, I can tell you, 80 percent of them have returned under Prince Dapo Abiodun’s leadership. And don’t forget, immediately Abiodun got into power, the first thing he did was to encourage and work with many opponents. Many of them are with us and they are still with us. May be, at a point in time, some left for reasons of not winning primaries. That is all you can get.

Dapo Abiodun today will win 80 percent of the votes in the coming 2023 governorship election in Ogun State. I am a seasoned politician. I have been in it for a long time. And I read writings on the walls all the time. I know the trend. Many people don’t know the trend. It is not enough for somebody leaving the party to nowhere, just because he lost primary election. We have such, and they advertise the little so much noise as if the whole party is in cracks. Some of them have little or no supporters, but they exaggerate. I don’t want to mention names. Take for instance, our past Governor, again, I won’t mention his name, many of his supporters all over the local governments are with Prince Dapo Abiodun now. We control virtually every ward now. We control the State House of Assembly. So, what else do we need to win? The people are still with us, very much so. In a situation where the governor has decided to work, even harder than before and he has started. Within the next three months, you would see it. We are not saying that we are popular of winning.and we will rest on our oars. Nothing like that.

We are still working hard and we will continue to work hard until we win 80 percent of the total votes of the elective positions. You wait and see. It is a known fact today that, the main APC in Ogun State has no strong opponent. Where are the opponents? Tell me. Where are they? Except noisemakers and there are many noisemakers. And we will not rest on our oars until total victory is won. We have all it takes to do that to attain total victory.