Transfer of teachers: Oyo villagers withdraw wards from schools, vow to fight Ajimobi

Since the beginning of this year, about 1,000 pupils from 23 villages in Oyo-East and Oyo-West Local Governments in Oyo State have not been attending schools.
The boycott of schools by the pupils was as a result of directive by their parents over the removal of teachers who are Oyo indigenes from the schools, and their replacement with Afijio teachers.
Consequently, these pupils, some of who are in Primary six class and would soon sit for the Common Entrance Examination, have now taken to hunting of rabbits and big rats inside bushes, as well as engage in
menial jobs to the detriment of their future prospects.
The affected villages are Aguo, Bada, Oluwatedo, Alagbon, Obananko, Ago-Oyo, Ajagba, Olori, Gudugbu, and Gudugbu- Orile.
Others include Apaara, Baale Elesin, Oniyanrin, Imeleke, Alabi Olorunda, Abujakan, Oja Lanite, Igbo-Aje, Igbo-Olose, Laagbe, Obasere, Adebimpe, Irepodun Idi-Iyalode and Kiyeseni.
These villages are predominantly Oyo enclaves and located in Oyo-East and Oyo-West Local Governments.
Each of these rural communities which share boundary with the neighbouring Afijio Local Government had been in existence between three to four hundred centuries.
Afijio Local Government, though contiguous, comprised of towns like Awe, Fiditi, Akinmorin, Ilora, Iware, Imini, Ilu-Aje and Ijaye-Ojutaye, which are non-natives of Oyo.
Until recently, inhabitants of Oyo villages, and their counterparts in Afijio were living harmoniously with one another, and doing things in common without let or hindrance.
Findings revealed that each of three local governments [Afijio, Oyo-East and Oyo-West] provided social amenities to communities within its territory unhindered.
Elections were also conducted and the people cast votes at their respective local governments’ polling units unmolested.
However, the age-long harmony and peaceful co-existence started breaking up and replaced with mistrust, anger, despair and acrimony, following the creation of new Local Councils Development
Areas [LCDAs] by the State Government.
The new LCDAs creation resulted in the carving of 23
villages that were Oyo enclaves from their ancestral local governments [Oyo-East and Oyo-West] and merged with the neighbouring Afijio local
government.
Subsequently, the state government through the Universal Basic Education Board directed the Afijio Local Government Universal Basic Education Authority to take over, staffed and managed the twenty-three primary schools in the affected villages with immediate effect.
Government’s reason for the action was contained in a circular letter from the State Universal Basic Education Board with reference number
SUBEB/G.406/T.2/1, and dated 28th December, 2016.
It stated that the 23 schools were located within the geographical
boundary of Afijio, as evidenced by the official map.
The circular signed by N.O Wahab, Director, Administration and Supplies in the board, also directed that teachers in the Afijio local government universal basic education authority who have earlier been
redeployed to other schools in the local government, in the wake of the ownership crisis several years ago, should return to the schools they were before the crisis with effect from 9th January, 2017, when the second term begins.
The circular letter further mandated both the Oyo-East and Oyo-West local governments’ basic education authorities teaching and non-teaching staff to be withdrawn from the 23 schools, and deployed
to other schools within the geographical boundary of the two local governments.
The letter was endorsed to the Ministry of Local Governments and Chieftaincy Matters, Education Secretaries in Afijio, Oyo-East and Oyo-West Local Governments Universal Basic Education Authorities for
their information and follow-up.
Consequently, the letter on transfer of teachers by the state government elicited spontaneous sharp reactions and protests from the villagers, cross-section of Oyo indigenes and other interest groups.
Angry villagers from Imeleke, and Idi- Iyalode, including school children and parents recently barricaded access roads and chanted anti-solidarity songs to express their strong indignations to the transfer of Oyo teachers from the communities.
In tears, the concerned parents said: “It is unfortunate
that we are being treated in this manner by the state government. We did not bargain for this at all during the electioneering campaign before we voted for the governor. Transfer of teachers from our villages because they were not Afijio indigenes is wicked attempt by
the government to ruin our children’s future. We want the governor to reconsider his stand and re-open the schools without further delay. No amount of intimidation and coercion will frustrate us into succumbing
to clandestine moves to remove us from our roots, which is Oyo.’’
The aggrieved parents, some of who claimed to have passed out from primary schools established in their respective villages dated back to 1955, wondered the motives behind the government directive and warned that posterity will not forgive the governor and his family, if he allows their children’s future to be ruined.
Eighty-five-year-old Lateef Salawu, from Imeleke Village, who hinted that he passed out from the only primary school which served additional 16 hamlets in 1960, noted that Afijio had not been in existence during the period.
According to him: “During this period, the entire Oyo metropolis, including the present Afijio and even up till Oke-Ogun areas were known as Oyo South Constituency, with Oyo town as its headquarters.
Headmasters and teachers posted to the school were Oyo indigenes, and there had never been a time when teachers from other parts of the state were posted to the school’’.
Spokesperson for the pupils, including those in primary six, Miss Aminat Jimoh, said some of them “roam about the bush everyday hunting for rabbits and big rats”, while others fetch firewood, and engage in
peeling of cassava at the garri processing centre.
“We are passionately appealing to the governor to be sensitive and sympathetic to our agony on the transfer of teachers and closure of schools.
Head of the village, Chief Fakayode Moses Mowonle, described as saddening the closure of school by the government simply because “we objected to the relocation of Oyo teachers from our village and
subsequent replacement with Afijio teachers. Don’t we have the right to object and demand explanation? The closure of school by the government was a clear invitation to chaos and violence. But for the timely intervention of His Imperial Majesty, the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi 111, the situation would have gotten out of hand’’, Chief Mowonle asserted.
In the same vein, head of Idi-Iyalode village, Chief Lasisi Akintola, who was close to tears, observed that the future portends danger if the school remained shut and pupils continued to stay at home indefinitely.
Meanwhile, the Oyo Metropolitan Development Association [an umbrella body of Oyo indigenes both at home and abroad] has said that it is not favourably disposed to a situation where the creation of council
development areas would encroach on established boundaries, or involve the ceding of statutory entities to others without their consent.
It also expressed strong indignation over what it called ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ in the creation of new council areas, adding that it strongly believed in contiguous communities having a lot in common and that peaceful and lawful means should always be employed in
resolving knotty issues, while the use of force or coersion or violence should be avoided at all times.
Chairman of the Association, Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu, said in Oyo town, the forum embraced with open arms, great excitement and bright expectations the idea of creating additional council
development areas in the state, and particularly in the Oyo metropolitan areas.
Bishop Ladigbolu stated that neither the Alaafin nor Oyo indigenes were in conflict with the state government or the people of Afijio local government area on the creation of new council development areas
contrary to widespread misconceptions.
He added that immediately creation of new councils were announced and
in line with the government request for interests in additional
council areas’ creation, five new ones were formally proposed to the
authority.
‘’ We proposed for the creation of additional five council areas to
make total number of new LGDAs to be nine. Also, as soon as the
government gazette of the new council development areas was published,
we started writing letters of appeal to appropriate authorities
seeking for the correction of the glaring errors in the delineation of
the towns and villages included in the LGDAs, with particular
references to Atiba, Orire, Oyo—East  and Oyo-West  Local
Governments’’.
He continued, ‘’we have no complaints about all other LGDAs both
inside and outside Oyo metropolis. We equally wrote about six letters
between September 92016 January 4, 2017m just as we  received a
delegation of placard-carrying protesters in the town last year, who
accused the Alaafin of selling their land  and villages to Afijio
people’ all appropriate steps taken were to no avail’’.
Ladigbolu disclosed that after much pressure, governor Abiola Ajimobi,
decided to grant audience to the association, but he  could  not
attend due to another important community assignment scheduled same
day for Lagos.
‘’When the Alaafin was informed about the decision of the governor to
meet with the association and those to represent it, Oba Lamidi
Adeyemi 111, volunteered to meet with the governor since, according to
him, the issues at stake were crucial and in the overall best interest
of his domain, which is the metropolis he was accompanied to the
meeting by two prominent indigenes, a former member of the House of
Representatives, Akinrogun Segun Taiwo, and former council chairman,
Chief Anjorin Laoye’’.
Ladigbolu further explained that a meeting of the LCDA  Petitions
Committee in Ibadan was attended by the association in early January
this year to further pressed home their point and dew government
attention to the anomalies found in the process, but to no avail.
He asserted that the association is aware and supportive of the legal
steps taken by the concerned Baales and Chiefs in order to protect
their fundamental human rights and the rights of their people whose
villages have been invaded, adding that there was still room for the
government to effect corrections.
Giving insight into the marathon meeting between the Alaafin and the
governor,  Akinrogun Segun Taiwo, said for three hours of discussion,
Oba adeyemi spent about an hour to explain with facts and figures on why new council areas allocated to Oyo metropolis should be more than five in order to allow development to spread, as well why
Oyo land should not be ceded to other local government development areas.
He added that at no time did the Alaafin opposed the creation of additional council development areas, let alone kicked against the move for more council areas to be created at the meeting contrary to baseless rumours milling around.
“Governor Abiola Ajimobi was elated and convinced about the Kabiyesi’s submission, which he described as highly intellectual and vividly explicit. The governor commended the monarch for not storming the
government house with placards carrying demonstrators and for his
unflinching support for his administration. The governor admitted that
arguments of the Alaafin were tenable, just and adequate. He also
assured that before the conduct of the local government election all
the anomalies raised by the monarch would be redressed.’’
Taiwo who also disclosed that the governor requested for another
official letter to be written and forwarded to the government for appropriate action, stated that despite that the directive was timely adhered to, government refused to take any action.