MURIC HAILS OGUN GOVERNOR FOR ALLOCATING 23% TO EDUCATION

22^nd November, 2017

PRESS RELEASE:

MURIC HAILS OGUN GOVERNOR

FOR ALLOCATING 23% TO EDUCATION  

The governor of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun, yesterday presented a N345.42 billion Appropriation Bill to the state’s House of Assembly. The education sector took the lion share of the budget with N79.246 billion, representing 22.9 percent of the total budget.     

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) commends Governor Amosun for this huge step forward in the path of education. It is bold, visionary and progressive.

Governor Amosun’s budget has taken cognizance of the reality facing the education sector. He has realized that education is taking a nose dive and he is taking steps to bring the sector back soaring in the sky once again. The mass failure of candidates who sat for the May/June 2017 WAEC/GCE examination whose result was released yesterday speaks volumes.

Compared to the Federal Government’s (FG) paltry 7% which was allocated to education in its 2018 budget, Amosun’s 22.9% is a saving grace. Its closeness to the 26% recommended by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) gives every citizen of Ogun State a good reason to stand tall. Amosun is immortalizing the legacy of the great sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

Ogun State’s 2018 education budget is an eye opener for FG. It shows that it is possible to give education its prime of place if a government is determined to lift the sector to its appropriate pedestal. FG must therefore develop the political will to rescue the education sector from the doldrums.

As we round up, we charge other states to lift the fate of education in their domains by increasing government spending on the sector. Education is like a computer machine. What you put in is what you retrieve. It is garbage in, garbage out. There is no abracadabra in it. What you sow is what you reap.

Professor Ishaq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)