Abiola Ajimobi was a career politician, who undermined progress with tyranny. @YNaija
#MorningReading
#MorningReading
1. Ajimobi’s policy misadventures in the education sector will surely end up as the defining legacy of his entire eight-year admin. He came to power promising ‘’restoration, transformation & repositioning.’’ In the education ministry, he delivered division, confusion, & disarray.
2.Ajimobi is perhaps most famous for an incident, documented in a viral video clip where he addressed protesting students of the state co-owned Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH).
3. Displaying a shocking lack of empathy or capacity to lead even, Ajimobi goaded the restive students into violence. ‘’If this is how you want to talk to me, then go and do your worst.’’ he challenged in his Yoruba dialect.
4. On the day of a planned stakeholders meeting on the matter of public school issues, labour leaders boycotted the meeting and instead organised a protest that disrupted the occasion.
5. The next day, the state NLC chairman and his colleagues were detained by policemen. Ajimobi denied authorising the police to arrest the labour leaders.
6. In June 2016, affected students took to the streets in protest days later, APC headquarter was ranksacked. According to them, the move to privatise by government was insensitive and poorly timed as their parents were being owed several months salaries arrears.
7. Ajimobi announced a shutdown of all public primary and secondary schools in the state. The students lost seven weeks of the academic calendar and the schools were reopened only after heads of affected schools had sent the governor their apology letters.
8. Ajimobi wasn’t known for delivering on campaign promises either. His much hyped youth empowerment program, YES-O which promised 20,000 new jobs collapsed under the weight of controversy when it could not even achieve half that number.
9. The cadets which the programme employed were dismissed unceremoniously following concerns of misdemeanour on their part.
10. A proposed state technical University failed to materialise, Ajimobi’s six model secondary schools initiative remained a pipe dream and a proposal to construct a 108km circular road to cover the entire state capital was jettisoned.
11. In a popular example of his high handedness, the Ajimobi administration demolished the structure housing the music and radio studios of physically challenged gospel artiste Yinka Ayefele for allegedly flouting housing rules.
12. He tried to return to the senate in 2019 but by then, the people had had enough of him. He was soundly defeated at the polls.
