UFOMBA UZUEGBU
Organized labour under the aegis of Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, ASCSN, has implored President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to reject plans to cede the 120 Federal Government Colleges to private individuals under the Public-Private Partnership, PPP model currently being allegedly spearheaded by Old Boys Associations of Kings College, Lagos, as a pet project.
The National Vice President of the Union, Comrade (Dr) Olubunmi Adebayo Fajobi, Ph.D, mni, stated this at a press briefing in Lagos on Thursday, urging President Tinubu not to accede to the plan because it will make quality secondary education inaccessible to millions of Nigerians.
Fajobi said : “Aa a preeminent politician (Tinubu), who has, over the decades, continued to hold aloft the banner of progressive governance ,it may well be that fifth columnists in your administration are pursuing this Agenda of appropriating public schools for private purposes to dent your impeccable credentials and derail your Renewed Hope Agenda for Nigerian youths.
“It must be admitted, Your Excellency, that there is certainly nothing wrong if the Old Boys Associations of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary institutions desire to give back to their alma masters by donating resources, renovating infrastructure, or providing contemporary technologies to such schools,to enhance learning, but that can be done without necessarily insisting on taking over such educational institutions.
” Indeed, philanthropy itself ought not be practiced in such a manner that it begins to vitiate from the core virtue of selflessness and starts to veer into the realm of ‘quid pro quo’, to become transactional and disingenuous “, Fajobi said.
The labour leader recalled that the Prime Minister in the first republic, Sir Tafawa Balewa in 1966, conceived the Idea of setting up the Federal Government Colleges to be models of secondary education, where Nigerian children irrespective of ethnic, social and economic backgrounds of their parents, will converge and interact in the schools and begin to see themselves as Nigerians.
” The first three Unity Colleges were established in 1966 at Okposi (later moved to Enugu),for Eastern Region, at Warri for Western Region and Sokoto for Northern Region.
” Today, there are 120 Federal Government Colleges located in different parts of the Federation and they continue to provide quality education which make them first choices for prominent Nigerians to place their children and wards “,he added.
Continuing, Fajobi said ; “We have always canvassed the view that Old Boys Associations and other private entrepreneurs, who wish to own secondary schools can set up their own instead of angling to convert them and the vast expanse of land thereof into hotels and shopping malls,to satisfy their insatiable greed”.
He appealed to the Federal Government not to cede the Unity Schools to private individuals but to sustain them as legacy inherited from the first Prime Minister, Sir Tafawa Balewa and other previous Administrations.
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