Celebrating Awo’s legacy
The cost of education in this part of the world has gone so high that many young people are beginning to consider giving up their dream of going to school. While some are lucky to have it on a platter of gold, a huge number of young people who have a very slim opportunity to […]
The cost of education in this part of the world has gone so high that many young people are beginning to consider giving up their dream of going to school. While some are lucky to have it on a platter of gold, a huge number of young people who have a very slim opportunity to find themselves on campus, especially in the public institutions, struggle through school, taking up menial jobs to assist their sponsors’ contribution , while many graduate in huge debt.
With irregular payment of salary of public servants and cost of living skyrocketing every day, the high cost of education from the stage of acquiring and registering for the matriculation exam (JAMB) which cost about ten thousand naira for a candidate is no doubt having its heavy toll on the finances of parents and guardians.
Do we now say the children of the poor, who make up the largest percentage of the population of the nation, now abandon school for the children of the rich because they can’t afford it? Of course no right thinking person would consider this, doing this would be tantamount to placing the future of the nation on a time bomb; it would only take a short time before the explosion consumes us all with nowhere to run to. In the not too distant future, it could result in a case of spending huge budget on insecurity placed upon us because we fail to invest appropriately in affordable education for all now. It could lead to what popular singer Asa said in her song Fire on the Mountain; “one day the river will overflow and there will be nowhere for us to go, and we will run, wishing we have put out the fire. There is fire on the mountain!”
It would not be out of place to say guarding against this explosion and keeping the future safe from an impending disaster must have been the motivation behind late Premier of defunct Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s decision to democratize access to education in Southwest Nigeria, which no doubt placed the region ahead of other regions in terms of number of educated people.
Professing the ideology of this Sage, as it is common among politicians in the Southwest, without aligning and taking political actions to sustain and build on this ideology is nothing but a ruse. Sustaining this ideology is what a leading governorship aspirant of the APC in Ekiti State, Congressman Bimbo Daramola strived to do when he set machinery in motion to gather over 1000 students in Ekiti state and on Tuesday, distributed 1050 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME/JAMB) forms to the selected candidates across the 16 local government areas of the State.
This he did in commemoration of the 109th posthumous birthday of former premier of Late Obafemi Awolowo who was born on March 6th, and there seems to be no better way of celebrating Awolowo who laid the foundation for free and qualitative education for the people of Southwest than this.
This is not the first, in 2017, Daramola did same with 1000 beneficiaries and this great gesture took off the parents, a heavy burden. Many of the successful beneficiaries of the 2017 edition are now admitted into tertiary institutions across the nation.
Balogun Sunday, a law student at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, is one of the beneficiaries of 2017 Bimbo Daramola’s free JAMB form. He was at the event where the 2018 beneficiaries received their photo cards and CBT training. Balogun was full of praises to the Congressman as he narrated his story. He told the amused crowd how he was able to obtain the form through the Congressman, he wrote the Exam and scored 291, which led to his admission into Obafemi Awolowo University Ile Ife.
One of the parents of the beneficiaries, Mrs Funke Olajide could not hide her enthusiasm, as she showered encomium and prayers for the Congressman “since I lost my husband, things have not been going on smoothly with the family finance, salary has not been regular too and it was giving me a big concern because we already lost hope and my daughter was on the verge of losing the opportunity of gaining admission this year if not for the good gesture of Hon Daramola. I can only pray to God to continue to bless him for putting smile on the face of my family and many families of other thousands of beneficiaries of this initiative.”
Not so many politicians do a huge feat like this without anticipating political gains, but for Daramola making positive impacts in the life of people around him overrides any other gain, as he has affirmed for the umpteenth time that he is not desperate to govern Ekiti state.
At the event which had in attendance, highly elated students and parents who had joy written all over their faces, as well as members, leaders and executives of the APC at the state level and across 177 wards of the 16 local government areas of the state, Daramola declared to the surprise of all that “my ambition to become Governor of Ekiti State is secondary if willed by the Almighty but salvaging the future generation is a primary concern to me as a passionate person. Our party, APC primaries is coming up in April and if the intent of this gesture is to seek favour or whatever to boost my support base, it won’t be from the JAMB candidates who are not eligible to partake in the party internal selection.
“Unequivocally, if we are out to make noise of this progressive drive it would not have started this year when there was no electoral tempo within and outside the state. My aim to give assistances to young brilliant but indigent students across the state is simply to be historically known as a destiny helper by the time the beneficiaries of our kind gesture attain their respective potentials in various professional fields.”
Congressman Bimbo Daramola, with this, has set another high standard and has displayed a rare and uncommon trait which should be highly considered in choosing who holds a political office. History and posterity has never been unkind to those who take education of the younger generation a topmost priority.
Femi Salako ([email protected])