Oyo Denies Converting School To Shopping Mall

The Oyo State Government has described as mere campaign of calumny, insinuations that one of the government-owned secondary schools in Ibadan, the state capital, has been pulled down to make way for a shopping mall.

The State Government was reacting to a report credited to the Senate deputy chief whip, Senator Hosea Ayoola Agboola that it was planning to convert Oba Akinbiyi High School, Mokola, Ibadan, to a shopping mall.

The state Commissioner for Education, Solomon Olaniyonu, in a statement issued in Ibadan, on Monday, to refute the report, said Oba Akinbiyi High School was one of the six schools penciled down for conversion to model schools.

“The pulling down of the structure is to pave way for the school to be rebuilt as a modern model school with 24 classrooms and all other modern facilities”, he added.

According to Olaniyonu, on completion, the school would have facilities such as clinics, administrative block, laboratories for science subjects, “indeed, we want to ensure that the integrated science and the workshop for the newly-introduced entrepreneurial subjects are well-furnished to ensure their durability and the enhancement of thorough training for students”, he added.

Olaniyonu said that the contractors handling the project had already been mobilised, noting that the pulling down of the structures marked the commencement of work.

He said that work had also commenced on the remaining five schools equally scheduled for conversion to model schools, one of which he said was Baptist High School, Saki.

The commissioner accused Senator Agboola of embarking on deliberate spread of falsehood in order to score cheap political point.

“Now that Governor Abiola Ajimobi has decided to use part of the meager resources available to the state to put the schools back to shape, the likes of Senator Agboola have embarked on deliberate spread of falsehood in order to cause confusion in Oyo State. It will not stand”, he said.