Halimah Ogunrinde has a milky sheen in her left eye as if her vision was trapped behind a curtain of fog. Seeing me, she blinked slowly, as though trying to peer through a film of smoke that never quite cleared. Her left eye was completely clouded, like frosted glass.
“What happened to her left eye?” I asked the class teacher, Mrs Titilayo Falade, whose full figure could first be seen in the confidence of her robust neck.
“That was how they gave birth to her. She has cataract,” Mrs Falade said, casually, leaving my heart harrowed and sunken. Ogunrinde’s Father, Mr Ogunrinde Soburi, who was working on some of the students’ chairs in the school as a carpenter, later confirmed the teacher’s statement to me, and nothing else was left to say.
Ogunrinde’s two eyes flipped down. It was the week of resumption and Mrs Falade was worried sick like any other teacher would do.
The class teacher had complained about Ogunrinde not having the appropriate exercise books for the Primary 2 class she belonged to. Ogunrinde was given only two big notes by her parents. Mrs Falade said she was supposed to use 2B and 2D exercise books, totalling eight which are appropriate for her class.
I watched Ogunrinde so closely, my eyes deepened as her head bowed. I could almost see the light in her spirit dim. It was as if Mrs Falade’s words were too much for her to bear. Too young, around the age of 4, she heaved a deep sigh while trying to write something on the table where she was sitting. She did that to take away attention from herself. I told Mrs Falade, who also doubled as the seller of books for the pupils, to give her all the books she needed. She did. However, it would’ve been better if those were all Ogunrinde needed.
Learning with Blurry Vision and Crumbling Structures
Surrounded by thick bushes and tall trees, Ansarudeen Primary School in Imasayi, Yewa North Local Government Area of Ogun State, was eerily quiet, like a graveyard of the forgotten when I visited. Ironically, a thrown stone away, one graveyard nests. The distant murmurs of pupils, the chirping of birds, and the infrequent plying of commuters along a partly destroyed road stretching before the wide expanse of the primary school were the only things distorting the music of silence around the school.
The academy was founded in 1958. On a visit to the school, it didn’t seem like a school that had lasted for over a decade and a half. It has just four blocks of classrooms. Each block has at least two classrooms. Two of the blocks which were part of the Universal Basic Education project (UBEC) in 2016, are the only things mirroring the school as one place of learning in Nigeria’s non-standard level of education. These two blocks, moreover, are slowly wearing apart. The ceiling, the floor, and the painting are receding, leaving wreathing plants to take charge little by little.
The two other blocks can only be recognised as classrooms when you move closer. Aside from this, from afar, both blocks stand weathered by time. Their cracked walls and peeled paint tell stories of years of neglect. But despite the decay, students huddle together in diminished wooden chairs. Their voices were soft yet determined with eyes focused on learning.
The School Headteacher who hesitantly gave his name as “Mr Oguntade,” refused to speak to me for fear of losing his job. He said, “We’ve been mandated as civil servants to never speak to the press. I can’t talk.”
Two primary six students I sought to engage in Ansarudeen Primary School could not speak good English. This paints a picture of worry about the level of illiteracy in academic settings that has eaten deep in Ogun State’s rural community schools.
Opting to converse in Yoruba with the students, they said “No constructions have been done in the recent time in the school.” Consequently, the obvious discovery has a credence to their statements.
Moreover, Ansarudeen Primary School is not the only citadel of learning in the league of partly destroyed schools, neglected under Governor Dapo Abiodun’s administration in Ogun State despite a whooping N109.21bn pledge to education in the State, numerous UBEC funds for the development of early childhood education in the State and specific State’s budget on construction and furnishing of schools in Yewa North Local Government.
For instance, the Ogun State Government in the 2023 fiscal year had ₦230,137,287 and in the 2024 fiscal year ₦748,024,602 budgeted to construct nine blocks of classrooms at six public primary and three junior secondary schools; construct six computer rooms at public primary schools; rehabilitate ten blocks of classrooms at ten selected public primary schools and also construct two boreholes and two elevated tanks at two public primary schools in Yewa North Local Government.
To add more context, between 2020 and 2023, which entirely captures the first term administration of Governor Abiodun, UBEC recorded a total sum of ₦4,261,958,111 matching grants unaccessed in the account of the Ogun State Government. The grants were 50% of the Federal Government’s 2% Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) which were meant to address Early Childhood Care and Development Education (ECCDE) targeting Primary School Education and Junior Secondary School.
In the face of these projects and funds expected to perk up the standard of education in the State and the Local Government, physical actualisation of them seems impossible for Ansarudeen Primary School, Christ Church Primary School, and Gateway Secondary School.
Christ Church Primary School, another school in Imasayi, which will be clocking its centenary next January, has the same dilapidated structures yet students are learning inside of them.
In Abeokuta, Gateway Secondary School is currently in a similar state as the Saint Academy was before it, on July 12, collapsed in Jos, leading to 22 students dead and nearly 132 injuries. They were taking exams when the collapse happened unexpectedly.
A structural engineering expert based in Oyo, Engr Abiola Michael, has said such a collapse of The Saint Academy may happen at Ansarudeen Primary School, Christ Church Primary School, and Gateway Secondary School in Ogun State soon.
Engr Micheal, who stressed the need for the “integrity test” of the schools’ buildings, said, “The roofs (referring to the schools’ roofs) are going to collapse sooner or later.”
Presenting my findings on the condition of the schools to the Ogun State Commissioner of Education, Science and Technology, Professor Abayomi Arigbabu, last Saturday, the Commissioner said the current Governor of the State’s administration, met backlogs of UBEC interventions on schools undone.
Professor Arigbabu said the State “had to pay up all the counterpart fundings from 2014,” to start undertaking the UBEC intervention projects in schools one after the other. This statement of the Commissioner, is however, contestable. This is because in the recently released UBEC document, detailing the accessed matching grants disbursed to the 36 States from 2005 to 2023, Ogun State got ₦13,562,461,766 from 2005 to 2019. Only 2020 to 2023 (under Governor Dapo Abiodun) matching grants of Ogun State (₦4.26bn) were unaccessed by UBEC.
Against these backdrops, the Ogun State Commissioner for Education believes that “Those interventions for 2019 and 2020, have been done. But some contractors defaulted. We’re going for interventions from 2020 now to 2024.”
I asked about the rehabilitation of classroom buildings at Ansarudeen Primary School and Christ Church Primary School in Imasayi, Yewa North Local Government, and Gateway Secondary School in Abeokuta; the Commissioner said, “We will work on it. Even for tables and chairs, we have some schools that we’ve our interventions.
“It is a work in progress. We noticed all these things and the most important thing is to do something about what we noticed. And when people also call our attention, we do something about them.
“If there is a budget for it, definitely we will do something there. If it has not been done, definitely there is an intention to prepare classrooms and build new structures in all our schools. We will do our best to make sure that all schools will have our intervention.”
Hon. Arigbabu sent me some pictures detailing different school projects, bordering on the rehabilitation and construction of schools done by Governor Dapo Abiodun. A source who would not love to be named for fear of being fired said most of those projects had been done nearly two years ago.
An instance of a toilet done in Christ Church Primary School in Yewa North Local Government, which was among yh3 pictures sent to me by the Commissioner. The source said the toilet was done nearly two years ago with water not adequately running. “students often go outside the school premises to fetch water to use the toilet,” the source said.
A visit to the toilet also shows that the tap water was never used because the water dispenser valve was never fixed.
A call to the Principal of Christ Church Primary School met with a surprising response. The principal, Mr Babalola Sanya, whom I saw two weeks before as the school head, said he had been transferred, and, as such, he could no longer speak on any issues affecting the school. At the end, he did not hide that the school has infrastructural problems.
I stood at Ogunrinde’s class in Ansarudeen Primary School, where the creaking sound of the windows pricked through the silence. For the books I bought and the fact that the class teacher, Mrs Falade, had told her to say thank you, Ogunrinde could not take her gaze away from me. It was as if she found hope as her formerly lower chin could now stand, giving her eyes the confidence they needed to stare sharply at my face. But the eyes of Halimah Ogunrinde could only see a distorted version of me as the cataract stuck closely to her left eye. As I took my leave, Ogunrinde could only hope for both medical and academic assistance as much as her school bleeds rehabilitation, alongside others.
