Despite N10.2 billion rehabilitation, uncompleted projects, dilapidated classrooms litter Ogun

Governor Dapo Abiodun said last year that over 400 primary and secondary schools have been renovated in Ogun State under his administration.

However, when PREMIUM TIMES late in 2022 toured the three senatorial districts of the state, our reporter found facilities in many public schools still in deplorable conditions.

The renovation project was executed with a N10.2 billion fund jointly contributed, equally, by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and the state government.

UBEC released its share of the fund to the state government in 2019 to address infrastructural decay and inadequate facilities in 236 public schools across the state.

PREMIUM TIMES found that in many schools captured under the rehabilitation project, the exercise has either not been completed or started at all. All the schools mentioned in this report are those the Abiodun administration listed as schools it has renovated.

The rehabilitated blocks of classrooms all had yellow roofs, the signature of the Dapo Abiodun administration.

Cracked walls, leaky roofs

At the St Joseph RCM Primary school in the Ayila area of Ogun Waterside Local Government Area, pupils were attending classes in uncompleted buildings with cracked walls and leaking roofs. Because chairs and desks were insufficient, some pupils sat on the bare floor.

One of the two buildings in the school looked like it could collapse anytime. “We cannot abandon it because we don’t have an alternative,” a teacher told PREMIUM TIMES.

The teacher said classes are suspended whenever it rains, because of the leaky roofs and low walls.

“When it rains, there is no class because all the pupils need to be moved to the two classes that are still manageable,” the teacher said.

Toye, one of the pupils, said he wants the government to repair and upgrade the school.

Gboko community in Ketu, Yewa North Local Government Area, has only one primary school. The mud-walled school has no teachers.

A block of three classrooms built as part of the UBEC project reportedly collapsed following heavy rainfall. It was after the incident that members of the community pooled resources together to build the mud-walled classrooms in 2021.

To accommodate all the pupils in the makeshift building, the junior classes were merged into a single class, while classes five and six shared another classroom.

The Chairman of the school’s Parents/ Teachers Association (PTA), Fakonbi Paul, said the school management wrote the government for another block of classrooms but there had been no response. Premium Times