Social Crusader Threatens Court Action Against Obaseki Over Primary Six Examination.

By Newscurve.

A Benin-based social crusader and human  rights activist, Chief Patrick Eholor, has threatened to take Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki to court  over alleged failure to conduct the 2020 Primary Six Examination leading to the award of Primary School First Leaving Certificate. 

Eholor, the President of One Love Foundation who made the allegation while addressing newsmen on Saturday in Benin City, the State Capital said it would amount to the promotion of medicrity for pupils to be awarded Primary School Leaving Certificate without examination and called on the Governor to rescind the decision.

He explained that his decision to seek redress in court, is to discourage mediocrity in the education sector and for the sake of posterity.

He wondered why some perfidious individuals in the Government who duly earned their Leaving School Certificates on merit, failed to tell the Governor the consequences of promoting pupils who did not sit for the examinations.

“My reasons are simple and clear. Godwin Obaseki is a good man who has passion for the citizens. He is a man that is very civilized and civil, but those he surrounded himself with are his messengers. Sadly, we can no longer trust their message.

“I am going to challenge it in court that nobody should be promoted without examinations.

“What I am saying is that we are going to go to court to challenge that. Our children must write their examinations before they are promoted. You cannot carry people forward without examinations, that is wrong. It will amount to setting a wrong precedent for the State.

“He (Obaseki) must reverse that decision and the children must do their Primary School Leaving Certificate examinations before they are promoted to the next level.

“First of all, if he (Obaseki) reply me within 24 hours, I will save his cost of spending tax-payers money in court. But, if he doesn’t respond, I will engage the best lawyer in town to take him to court," he said.

According to Eholor, "When governor Godwin Obaseki said in his own words that we are going to give a Leaving School Certificate to non-performance and to non-Education, he said it was because of Covid-19 and that the State doesn’t have the resources.

“But, you cannot promote people without pass. We have suffered enough…”, he lamented.

The Nigeria Government had shutdown all public and private schools nationwide for  several months as one of the measures it took to contain the spread of the dreaded  Covid-19 while the economy was on total lockdown.

School children that were yet to sit for their third term promotion examinations, were promoted to the next classes in a bid to make up for the lost ground as a result of the compulsory holiday. 

Efforts to get the Governor's side of the story failed as a spokesperson has not been appointed by the Governor since he was inaugurated for a second term on 12 November. 

However Governor Obaseki has previously reinterated the desire of his administration to revatilise primary education in the state through the Edo Basic Education Transformation (Edo BEST) programme. The governor reemphasised this during the virtual Town Hall meeting he held with Edo people on 19 December, pointing out that his administration has earmarked N20.8 billion for the education sector in 2021 to sustain the gains recorded by the administration in the first term.