Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, says the decision to shut down Colleges of Education in Ekiadolor and Iguoriakhi has been vindicated by reports of misappropriation of funds by the management.
Obaseki stated this on Friday when he received the final report from the commission of inquiry into activities of the institutions headed by Former Head Of Service, Mrs Gladys Idahor at the Government House in Benin City, the state capital.
“One underlying trend of these institutions is poor governance,” the governor lamented.
According to him, the institutions were so badly run that they were all grounded and he believes that “it was the height of deception”, for any Edo person to have insisted that they continued with the rot.
He, therefore, insisted that those indicted by the commission’s findings will face the consequences of their actions, noting that his administration had already taken steps to transform the institutions into standard manpower training centres.
“We thank God that we had the courage to take the actions we needed to take and institutions that are to be shut down, are shut down and restructuring processes have commenced.
“We will like to look deep into these reports and as I’ve always said, we must try to get away from this penchant of people allowing people mismanage public resources, run-down public institutions and they go scot-free.
“We want to look at these reports and see if there are any grounds for prosecuting some of these people who are involved in the destruction of these institutions.
“These schools were set up to serve certain purposes, to help in training high-quality manpower to serve the state. They were not set up to serve the interests of a few people and their godfathers and by the grace of God, with the renewed mandate which the Edo people have given me, I will not allow a situation where the bad habits that led to the destruction of these fine institutions, are allowed to continue”.
With another four years ahead of him, the Edo State Governor has reiterated his commitment to education reforms.
During his campaigns, he had explained how his administration transformed basic education in the state, through EdoBest, “to the applaud of the whole world.”
According to him, Edobest involved the use of technology to facilitate education; a system he said, has come in handy through the pandemic.