Obaseki threatens educational unrest against successor if EdoBest is scrapped

Governor Obaseki, Commissioner for Education, Mrs Joan Oviawe and others during the Edo state Education week, 2023

with the theme, "Education for Alaghodaro: Investing in quality.

By Editor

April 27, 2023

In his euphoria of the supposed successes achieved by the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBEST) programme, Edo State Governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki has threatened to mastermind a statewide protest if the programme is discontinued his by successors.

DailyMonitorngr reports that the Governor Obaseki-led government had in 2018 introduced the EdoBEST programme in the primary school educational system with the purpose to stem the alleged slide in the basic education sector in the state.

Obaseki gave the threat while addressing Head of Schools and teachers at the New Era College in Benin City, as part of activities of the Edo State Education week 2023 with the theme, "Education for Alaghodaro: Investing in quality education and access for our children and youth".

He said, he will mobilize over 

370,000 students who are in the state  school system, over 15,000, 20,000 teachers and education managers to the streets in protest against any government after him that try to stop the programme.

He also lamented that in spite of his achievements in the education and other sectors of the state economy, there have been a lot of backlash of criticisms directed against  him and his government on the social media.

According to him, those who refused to contribute to the future of the children are waiting to see the end of EDOBEST.

"They are waiting to let Obaseki go so that they will kill it. They are saying why is he wasting all these money to buy books for the children? Na books we go chop? 

"They are angry. So, if we do not sustain it, the threat is from them. They are not interested in the future but the experience of the last one or two years have taught us that they will not succeed.

"They can't because we can see the political evolution in our country.

"Students and teachers would be mobile to oust any government that refuses to continue with the programme in the state. 

"With the parents of the 370,000 children in our school system, with the over 15,000, 20,000 teachers and education managers, we will go into the streets, we will go to every household, we will go to everywhere children's are, and they have wards and caretakers and let them know that EDOBEST must be sustained

"It is part of the reform process. Unfortunately, it is a group of politicians like me who refused to do what we are doing for more than three decades, for over two generations. 

"Anybody who succeeds me or any politicians that doesn't prioritize education, we will throw them out of office. Will you not?he queried  rhetorically.

Governor Godwin Obaseki in a group photograph with students during the Edo State Education week 2023 in Benin City

The governor who spoke on his uncomfortability  with barrages of criticism against his government's governance, policies and programmes in the state expressed  surprise that in spite of the developmental strides of his administration in the past six years the social media professionals still rated the government of poor performance.

"Often time you go online and you see the attacks on me and my government, you will ask, if the government is doing all these things he said he is doing, why is there so much attacks on him?

"I am sure if you go on most of the blogs, the critical blogs, you will not see any stories about what we are doing, about the improvements we have made in our schools, about how we have transformed our school system into learning systems. You will not see", he stated.

He, however, assured teachers that the programme would be sustained after his tenure in office just as he urged teachers and parents to keep spreading the messages of hopes and sustainability of the EDOBEST in the state. 

Meanwhile, the state government said it distributed 3.3 million writing and textbooks to public schools across the 18 Local Government Areas in the state.

The Chairman, Edo State Universal Basic Education Board, Mrs Ozavize Salami said out of the 3.3 million books, 1.8 books were distributed between 2018 and 2022 to 848 public primary schools in the state.

"This year's 1.5 million books would also be distributed to public school. One million of it would be distributed to primary schools while over 500,000 would be distributed to junior secondary schools", she added.