Gov. Uduaghan and embattled PDP chair, Bamanga Tukur
The inauguration of Education Special Marshals by Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan was today overrun by a protest by parents and pupils in Asaba, the state capital.
At issue is the closure of the widely publicized "Government Model Primary School", GRA, Asaba.
Uduaghan had in November 2012 hurriedly drafted the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur to Asaba on a chartered aircraft to commission the model primary school in a bid to score a political point.
Monday’s Education Special Marshals ceremony, which was telecast live by Channels Television for millions of Naira, was almost disrupted by the protesters. They dismissed the governor’s action as barbaric, saying he had deceived the world that he had built a state of the art model primary school which lacks high standards.
According to the protesting parents whose children were sent back home last two weeks after they had expended several thousands of Naira on uniforms and other materials, the governor had failed to plan properly before embarking on projects.
One of the parents, who identified herself simply as Mrs. Obiora, said, “It is a pity that after using the media to deceive the people only for Governor Uduaghan to close down the same school he has used the PDP national chairman to commission that the school lacked standard. Every now and then the commissioner for basic and secondary education, Prof. Patrick Muoboghare, is always singing to high heavens that Delta schools are world class. If the governor was aware that the school lacked standard why in a hurry to drag down the PDP chairman to commission it and allow us to waste money in sending our children to the school that lacked standard?”
According to her, “Just take a walk to St. Patrick’s College you will see how the government is wasting money in the name of projects. Till date nobody has occupied that over-publicised edifice that several millions of Naira was used to build. Look at our roads especially in Asaba you will know that the government is a failed one.”
Reacting to the ugly development, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan warned parents to desist from using their wards in any form of protest in the state, adding that it is not in the best interest of children to be used for protests neither is it the right way to bring up a child.
He explained, “The school was specially built for a particular standard which has not been attained and we have not finished the construction work in the school, we have not finished putting all the facilities in place. All the electronic things, security gadgets are not in place. Yet somebody opened the school and put children here before I realized it. I allowed them to finish last session before I take back the school to enable government complete the infrastructures.”
The governor charged the pupils to avoid being incited by their parents and teachers to carry out protests reassuring them that the state government would relocate them to better schools whose facilities were completed rather than insisting on remaining in the uncompleted school.
He admonished parents not to misleading their wards at this tender age to start carrying placards and start protesting stressing that “it is not good education and it is not the best way to bring up your children.”
Responding to a text message, the state Commissioner for Information, Mr. Chike Ogeah, said, “I know, the government is trying to reorganize that school as a true model school with befitting students with the appropriate intellectual capacity to excel, so really it is that reorganization that is on as against the haphazard arrangement of just dumping students from anywhere in there. It is supposed to be a model school with clearly defined and high standards. What happened was unfortunate to say the least.”
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