The Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, has faulted a statement credited to President Goodluck Jonathan that Muhammadu Buhari did not buy any weapon for soldiers when he was in government.
Fashola spoke at the 2014 series of the Obafemi Awolowo Free Education Lecture organised by the Faculty of Education, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State on Thursday.
He wondered if President Goodluck Jonathan planned to fight terrorists with 1985 weapons.
He said, “When a man says, ‘When they were there, they did not buy guns’. Ask, If they had bought guns in 1985, will he be fighting war with 1985 guns?
“It is a good thing to take a man by his words. Awolowo prepared himself to speak in public because he knew the value of the spoken word and more importantly knew electoral promises were a matter of very serious honour, and to break them was a matter of great dishonour and breach of trust.
“Indeed, nothing honours or dishonours a man like the value of his words.”
Fashola also faulted activist of free education in Nigeria, saying they were not well informed about what it meant to give free education at all levels.
He explained that free education could only be guaranteed at the primary and secondary level, adding that many people had failed to differentiate between education and specialisation.
According to Fashola, education ends at secondary level, other activities at tertiary level can be described as specialisation.
He said, “What is the definition of education that must be free and which the state is duty bound to provide, and which the citizen is duty bound to take? These questions are important; those who chant Awolowo’s name in the quest for free education at all levels, have probably not done the cost of educating one child at primary level, let alone secondary and tertiary level levels which some people are clamouring for.
“And if these omissions by the protagonists are enough, they cannot provide any data about the number of beneficiaries, yet they say Awolowo would simply have done it. This is where they display their ignorance of the man whose name they use in vain to make loud attention-seeking noise.”
He, however, asked people to stop comparing present educational policies to that of Awolowo.
Vice-Chancellor of OAU, Prof. Bamitale Omole, and Dean of Faculty of Education, Prof. Philip Jegede, urged government at all levels to make education a priority. Punch
