Wide condemnations have been trailing the decision of a local government chairman to site a market within the premises of a school.
The Chairman of the Ado Odo Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State, Mr. Sheriff Adewale Musa, has decided to build a shopping complex inside the Nawair-Ud-Deen Primary School 1, Atan Ota, with evidence of commencement of work. This action of the Chairman has naturally pitched him against lovers of education.
Ado-Odo Ota local government is one of the most sophisticated local governments in Ogun State taking advantage of its proximity to Lagos State.
Unfortunately, the Chairman has not been able to differentiate the wide gap between a school environment and a market environment. The two are extremes as serenity is the hallmark of academic environment while noise is the trademark of a marketplace. The issue of security challenges posed to the students appeared also irrelevant to the local government boss.
According to a post on News Hub Creator, : “I was in the local government area for an interview on Friday afternoon when I was informed by another journalist about the situation and I decided to visit the school where I saw that work had already begun on the project inside the school.
What I was told by people around the school premises was that the shopping complex will have 20 shops with 10 of them downstairs and another 10 upstairs.
This was also attested to by the flyer displayed at the fence of the school by the developers which shows how the complex will look like. The flyer also asked people to come and pay for the shops.”
In his own remarks, Jinad Hammed on behalf of Yewa Youth Awake described the action of the Chairman as cluelessness and executive recklessness.
According to Hammed, : “Recklessness and cluelessness in government is fast taking another dimension lately, as the Chairman of Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government, Ogun state, is about to build over 20 shops plaza within the premises of Nawair-Ud-Deen Primary School, Atan-Ota, Ogun State. All in the name of generating internal revenue.
The said project which made the Chairman to consider primary education irrelevant and unimportant is basically targeted towards generating income which will as usual, lack accountability and transparency when it’s time for audit.”
Hammed posited further that there are so many needs within the school that the Chairman should have focused on rather than attempting to expose the children to negative tendencies attributable to the market environment.
“This school have no library, good toilet and many other learning materials, but the only thing SAM20 could think of is building shopping complex in the school premises.
Taking a swipe at the local government boss, Hammed asserted that , “Success in never a must. It’s not mandatory that SAM20 leaves Ado-Odo/Ota LG and her education better, but shouldn’t just make things go worse for the people he choose to lead. It’s strange that SAM20 has decided to make life difficult for innocent pupils. Rather than joining the platform of great administrators who contribute to education by giving scholarship, better welfare programs and landmark projects he has decided to build over 20 shops in the school premises.
There have been concerns on how the local government boss was able to secure or procure approval for the construction of the 20 shops within the school.
Information at the disposal of ValidViewNetwork indicates that the Ogun state Honourable Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology Professor Abayomi Arigbabu is on top of the matter. This is bearing in mind that the construction of the shops within the school is antithetical to the principle of a conducive environment for learning.
ValidViewNetwork believes that any action capable of putting the academic pursuit of the pupils into jeopardy or exposing them to unecessary risk should be jettisoned.
