Honour the Awolowos; Revamp education in S/West -Archbishop.
By; Bayo Akamo, Ibadan.
The Archbishop of Ibadan Diocese of Methodist Church, Nigeria, Reverend Michael Kehinde Stephen has tasked governments in the South-Western part of Nigeria to honour the memories of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his wife, Mama Hannah Dideolu and revamp the state of education in the region.
Reverend Stephen who stated this in Ibadan at the farewell commendation service for late Mama HID Awolowo declared that the current state of education in the South west region was not what late Chief Awolowo and his late wife ever dreamt of when he was the Premier of Western region.
According to him, the current situation with several mission schools taken over by government, was nothing to write home about resulting in the conditions of schools in the region getting worst.
“The structure of many of the schools have become dilapidated, there are low morale teachers while many of the pupils are even without sandals or even slippers. This is not the type of education the late sage dreamt of and this is not the type of education our late Mama also wanted as the legacy of her husband. I will appeal to the governments in the South Western Nigeria to revisit the issue of education in the region and redress the situation if they really respect Chief Obafemi Awolowo and our Mama HID Awolowo,” he said.
The Cleric pointed out that “Education will change the mindset of our people. No matter the economic situation, the situation must be redressed.”
Commenting on late Mrs Awolowo, Reverend Stephen described her as “a woman of faith” who was able to combine her duty as a mother along with her political activism, saying, “Mama was a woman of faith. Faithful living is unpredictable. With faith in God, the end has a lot of blessings”.
He urged the Awolowo family not to allow the death of Mama HID to negatively affect the fortunes of Tribune Newspaper by setting up trust fund for the paper.
The commendation service was attended by several dignitaries including Governor Abiola Ajimobi, his counterparts from Osun, Rauf Aregbesola and Lagos, Akinwunmi Ambode, wife of Solid Minerals Minister, Chief Mrs Bisi Fayemi, former education Minister, Professor Tunde Adeniran, industrialist, Chief Bode Akindele.
There was also a lying in state of Mama Awolowo’s corpse at” Tribune’s House” at Imalefalafia and her Okebola(Ibadan) family residence where various personalities also extolled her virtues.
