Governor Ibikunle Amosun

Abiodun Onafuye/Abeokuta

Governor Ibikunle Amosun has explained that he has refused to pay the salary and other emoluments of the staff of Tai Solarin College of Education, TASCE, Omu Ijebu because he is not comfortable with the bloated staff of the school, compared with the student population.

He disclosed that the number of both staff and non teaching staff of the College is 100 per cent more than the total number of students in the school.

The governor stated this on Sunday while responding to a question from the Chairman of the JCC/NANS,Ogun State Chairman, Comrade Dotun Opaleye,a.k.a Zamora during the 2016 Democracy day interactive session with the Governor by the civil society groups in the State.

The event,which was organised by the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, CDHR,Ogun State council was held at the Cultural centre,Kuto, Abeokuta.

According to him,”the issue of TASCE is that the number of Staff,as submitted by the management is times two of the total students in the College. It means, two staff to each student.

“The total students of the College is around 1,600 and the staff,both academics and non academics are about 3,000. This is a call for proper checking.

“We are going to look into their matter but what happens is that things are not like when we came in. What we are collecting now is 74% less than what we were collecting in 2011 when we came into office.

” Imagine paying almost N800M to N900M monthly to our schools and it is interesting to know that we have the largest number of institutions in the country and most of them are State owned,so we are to attend to them.

“We pay Olabisi Onabanjo University,OOU N85.5M every month and it was paid for four years.We have also paid backlog of 18-19 months. If you multiply this by 12 and times by 48, it means that in four years,we have paid over N40billion to them. You will agree with me that it is not easy, but we will not relent.

“TASUED with total number of students of almost 20,000 collects between N50M to N60M monthly,MAPOLY, Abeokuta of about 25,000 students receives N40M,OOUTH,Sagamu,N190M, DS Adegbenro,Itori,about N8M.

“The primary school teachers are not there,they take away nothing less than N2.1billion monthly and if we added the secondary staff to it,it gives you something around N3.2billion.

“We were blacklisted before I came,all the money coming from TETFUND and others were squandered but I have not done that. I know we are not there,but I know we will get there”, Amosun assured.

The governor, who was firing from all cylinders explained to the mammoth crowd that filled up the hall that his administration is not relaxing and called for the continuous support of the people.

Commenting on the creation of the LCDAs,the governor maintained that, despite the present economic situation in the country, admitted that,though, the take off may be tasking,insisted that,” within the next one year, you will see the. benefits and importance of the creation of the creation of the LCDAs in the State.

Responding to a question from a woman group on why the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development has been scrapped.

Amosun debunked denied scrapping the ministry.

” What happened was that the local government to which the commissionership slot was allocated was unable to present a female candidate. They said it is men they have and this caused the delay as the slot is for a woman.

“Thank God,all that has been resolved now and the Women Affairs Commissioner’s name will be forwarded to the State House of Assembly for screening and she will be announced soon”, the governor hinted.

The event was attended by various civil society groups,students,Youth group,NYCN, transport unions like;NURTW,RTEAN, ACOMORAN and TORAN including other associations.

He promised that the interactive program with various stakeholders will at least be held once in a year.