As stated earlier, the Daniel administration increased the tuition fees of tertiary students by 100%. Senator Amosun promised to reduce it by 50% once voted into office. On the eve of his exit from power, the former governor announced a reduction of 50%. Notwithstanding that, the Amosun government further reduced the fees by 10%, thus bringing the reduction to 60%.
Of course, it was Amosun that achieved the significant reduction because the action of the departing government was cynical and opportunistic. Otherwise, why did it wait till the last minute to implement the promise made to the students by Amosun? It is now three years that Amosun approved the reduction.
The school fees in our tertiary institutions have not been increased since then. What have increased are the incidental or ancillary charges, which the government has no control over. For instance, virtually all the students pay fees to their professional bodies, and government has no control over such payment. The inherited problem between TASUED and TASCE is receiving attention and will be resolved in due course.
Currently, the Federal Government gets 52% of the Revenue Allocation from the Federation Account while the 36 states share 26%. When you divide the 26% by 36, you have 0.7% – but that is assuming the allocation is shared equally. But it is not, so Ogun State ends up with about 0.3% out of the 26% every month. When I saw the Federal Allocation recently in the newspapers, I shook my head. “This pittance can’t even pay the wage bill of workers,” I muttered. Yet, Amosun still has to fund the police, a federal agency, from that, repair some federal roads from that, etc. From 1999, the centre has never devoted up to 20% to education, and there is no free education in all the schools it owns.
Under the leadership of Senator Amosun, education has always got more than 20% of the yearly budget. Surprisingly, about 80% of that is used to pay wages and salaries of workers. That is why it is worrying that some staff will leave their employer in Abeokuta and go to Abuja to negotiate salary or allowance increment. There is a huge difference between 52% and 0.3%!
Notwithstanding, the current government is so very friendly to workers. It paid salaries of those that went on strike for six months because of a dispute with the Federal Government! Ogun workers have never had it so good. Workers in some states have been on strike close to a year now on account of non-payment of the minimum wage, yet in spite of the meagre amount we get from the Federation Account, the Amosun government has paid above the minimum wage, and implemented it across board, thus making it the only government to achieve such a milestone in Nigeria. Not only that, workers now freely express themselves and had on one occasion gone on strike on account of salaries owed by the previous government! As we enjoy this freedom, it is good we remember the road we had marched so that there is no accusation of abuse of freedom.
Contrary to the charge of the opposition that the Amosun administration only excelled in the area of infrastructure, the current government has achieved more in education than in other areas. Senator Ibikunle Amosun has taken education from the bottom rung that the previous administration left it and placed it on the top rung of the ladder of public policy. Again, while they spent money recklessly while in power, the Amosun government has been very frugal. For instance, political office holders under the current government receive one-third of what their predecessors earned every month. What Amosun deserves is appreciation, understanding and cooperation from the work force. The good news is that he is getting these from the overwhelming majority of the Ogun workers.
The crisis created by the sudden slump in the federally-collected revenue from 2013 continues to take its toll but due to discreet management of our resources by Governor Amosun, no worker is being owed any salary. Even when there were hiccups in the implementation of our free education, occasioned largely by our warped federalism, we’ve always risen to the occasion and surmounted those challenges.
Three years of free education in Ogun, Senator Amosun can hold his head high because he has trod where others feared to tread. They said free education was not possible at any level despite the humongous resources they had for eight years, but Amosun has not only made education free at the primary level, but pre-primary and secondary schools. The over 20,000 children that would have been out of school due to the policy faux pas of the previous government are now in school.
We still have a lot to do. Amosun inherited a sector in complete ruins. There are many dilapidated buildings scattered across the state, and have remained in such state for decades. Some have been renovated by this government. The majority of them need to be pulled down completely – many of them are already marked for demolition. Some of the schools need to be relocated because they are currently choked by development. Population has risen. Also, new schools have to be erected as schools are returned to their original owners.
As we continue the renovation of some of the structures, invest in training and welfare of teachers and construction of world class, state-of-the-art model schools, we trust the overwhelming majority of our people to continue to give their maximum co-operation to the Senator Ibikunle Amosun-led administration.
