You are Parochial and Shallow minded – Fayemi replies Adeyeye
Reacting to Dayo Adeyeye’s condemnation of award of overseas scholarships to six brilliant students by the State Governor , he said it portrayed the critics as someone living in the stone age. An Afenifere chieftain and governorship aspirant of the People’s Democratic Party in the state, Mr. Dayo Adeyeye, had opposed the idea, saying it was a waste of public funds. In a press release on Friday, Adeyeye described Fayemi’s claim that he gave scholarship to six Ekiti students as “cheap, childish and a propaganda that can only emanate from the stable of a government that is in desperate search for its lost image and credibility.” “How can a governor whose monthly salary is less than N700,000 claim that he is funding close to N50 million donation from his personal pocket?” he asked.
Adeyeye maintained that the PDP recognises that one of the ways to develop a society is to fund education of brilliant but indigent students through award of scholarship, explaining that it was the reason ex-Governor Segun Oni, gave scholarship to over 3,000 indigent but brilliant students, through the State Scholarship Board his government established. “Then, students doing PhD in Nigeria got N500,000 while those in foreign universities received N1 million.
Those doing their Masters in Nigeria were given N300,000 while those in foreign universities were given N500,000. Four Marine Engineering students were sent to Egypt to study with the government spending N36 million on them. Continuing, “Now a governor gave six Ekiti students, among whom was a student who graduated from a private university scholarship out of several thousands of Ekiti students in need of such gesture, and he is everywhere advertising it. “And he didn’t stopped there, he is also telling the public that the money came from his personal pocket and we ask him; did he gave scholarship to Ekiti students to study even in Isan-Ekiti, his hometown or Iworoko in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 that he was not a governor? ”
In a swift reaction, the Governor of the State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi described the critic as an uninformed adventurist. In a statement issued on Sunday by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Olayinka Oyebode, he said the scholarship was to encourage the brilliant students to get the best education and realise their dreams. Oyebode stated that “The governor’s decision to award full scholarships to these exceptionally brilliant students is to assist them in their quest for greatness and to encourage countless others to dare to be excellent in learning and in character.
“Governor Fayemi, who was impressed by the exceptional performances of these six graduates, chose to personally sponsor their post-graduate studies in their chosen foreign universities, including Harvard, Oxford and the University of Technology, Tinajin, China.” The CPS further said that Adeyeye made the statement out of ignorance because he sees nothing good in the Fayemi-led administration.
