No school is being converted to shopping mall – Oyo Commissioner
The Oyo State Government has described as mere campaign of calumny insinuations that one of the government-owned secondary
schools in Ibadan has been pulled down and converted to a shopping mall.
The Senate Deputy Chief Whip, Senator Hosea Ayoola Agboola had been credited with a report accusing the state government of planning to convert Oba Akinbiyi High School, Mokola, Ibadan to a shopping mall, describing it as “the highest philosophical summersault’’.
The State Commissioner for Education, Prof. Solomon Olaniyonu, in a statement issued in Ibadan on Monday, said Oba Akinbiyi High School was one of the six schools earmarked for conversion to model schools.
He said that the pulling down of some structures in the school was to pave way for the construction of other structures that would make it a truly model school, with modern facilities that would enhance a good and conducive teaching and learning environment.
“Oba Akinbiyi High School, Mokola is one of the six schools that are being converted to model schools. The pulling down of the structure is to pave way for the school to be rebuilt as a modern model school with 24 classrooms and all other modern facilities,’’ the commissioner explained.
He added that on completion, the school would have facilities such as clinics, administrative block, laboratories for science subjects, adding “indeed, we want to ensure that the integrated science and the workshop for the newly-introduced entrepreneurial subjects are well-furnished to ensure their usability and the enhancement of thorough training for students’’.
Prof. Olaniyonu said that the contractors handling the project had already been mobilized, adding that the pulling down of the structures signified the commencement of work.
He said that work had also commenced on the remaining five schools equally scheduled for conversion to model schools, one of which he said was Baptist High School, Saki, Agboola’s alma mater.
The commissioner accused Senator Agboola of embarking on deliberate spread of falsehood in order to score cheap political point, adding that for the eight-year reign of the Peoples Democratic Party-led government in the state, most of the schools were left unattended to, thus making them to be in bad shape.
“Now that Governor Abiola Ajimobi has decided to use part of the meager resources available to the state to put the schools back to shape, the likes of Senator Agboola have embarked on deliberate spread of falsehood in order to cause confusion in Oyo State. It will not stand,’’ he said.