Amosun sacks six education officials

Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun state might have come down mercilessly on some civil servants by sacking six officials in the State Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, including an acting Permanent Secretary one Folashade Oresegun; three directors and an examiner over a controversially offensive Senior School English language exam papers.

BusinessDay reports an examiner, Adegbenro Joel had prepared summary passage as part of English language exams questions for the third term academic session of the State Unified Examination in Public Secondary Schools  which had the passage taking a critical look on the alleged corruption and negligence by the government in public education sector.

According to findings gathered by BusinessDay, the governor reportedly got infuriated over the offensive summary passage critical of government education sector management and allegedly ordered the sacking of the officials of the ministry that were directly in charge of the examination.

Those who were affected by the governor’s long stick were, an acting Permanent Secretary who was a level 17 officer, Folashade Oresegun, the Director of Curriculum, Ganiu Odunsi and a Deputy Director, Curriculum and Evaluation simply identified as Mr Majekodunmi.

Others who were affected were;  the examiner who also taught English Language at May Flower Grammar School in Ikenne and two desk officers whose identities were not known as of the time of filing in this report.

While BusinessDay gathered that the sacking of both Oresegun and Odunsi had however, been converted to compulsory retirement, the four others were summarily dismissed.

The copy of the said offensive papers obtained by BusinessDay in Abeokuta revealed that the question papers, which government considered offensive, did not condemn government as being portrayed examined.

The excerpts of the papers go thus “There is no arguing about the fact that the government is merely paying lip service to the development of the education. It is true that a lot of money is being spent on education sector but, with little or no impact felt by the people, except where we want to deceive ourselves.

“Many school run by the government which were formally known for academic excellence have suddenly lost their prestige and are living on past glory. No wonder many parents and guardians are threateningly left with only one option,  to withdraw their wards from these schools to other ones that are better managed”.

When Taiwo Adeoluwa, Secretary to the State Government, was asked to comment on the development, the Secretary told some journalists on phone that he could not make any comment on the matter, saying that, “the issue is civil service matter, the best person to comment is the state Head of Service. Please call Head of Service”.

But, an attempt to get the reaction from the State Head of Service, Modupe Adekunle was futile as the woman did not pick calls put across to her.