Gov. Makinde abandoning education to build ‘white elephant’ motor parks, APC’s Folarin alleges

The All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Oyo State, Teslim Folarin, has promised a total overhaul of the state’s education and health sector if elected.

He disclosed while featuring on the maiden guest forum of Oyo State Correspondents’ Chapel of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Ibadan.

Mr Folarin, a former senate leader, claimed the state’s education sector needed serious overhauling, lamenting the recent ranking of the state on WAEC performance chart and delisting of 50 secondary schools.

The APC governorship candidate said Governor Seyi Makinde of abandoned education for misplaced priorities, such as building bus terminals.

“The terminus in Lagos is different from what we have here. Makinde is building bus terminus at N4.5 billion each.

“If you do a calculation of N50 million per block of classrooms, you will build nothing less than 370 across the 33 local governments in the state,” he said.

The former senate leader said building motor parks instead of schools was unacceptable to the people, promising to give purposeful leadership to address the challenge.

Mr Folarin promised to sit down with stakeholders, government agencies, old student associations, parents, religious bodies and others to decide the way forward for the sector.

The APC candidate, who promised to give purposeful leadership, blamed the current hardship on the effect of COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Mr Folarin said the same thing was witnessed in other countries, describing subsidy as the biggest scam in the country.

The western countries, he said, were technically in recession due to the COVID-19 lockdown and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Mr Folarin said western countries borrowed huge amounts of money to sustain their system during the lockdown, thinking it would be ploughed back through taxation.

“Now, there is nothing to tax. This pushes the prices of energy up. So, we cannot say we aren’t part of the global community,” he said.

(NAN)