In 2018, at the Minstry of Women Affairs, I witnessed how a woman, from Enugu, was caught and arrested with a rented set of triplets that she was passing off as hers and exploiting to gain sympathy from an unsuspecting public, as well as childless women who wanted to “tap” from her “triplets blessing”. She used them to beg for money at Ring Road, close to First Bank.
Unbeknownst to this woman, the Minstry had intel on her and had been watching her and soon gathered enough evidence against her, so they made their arrest. The woman had made over 103k in 4hours in that day alone, from begging. The woman, the original mothers of the children were located, arrested and handed over to police.
The exploitation against children in Edo is one Governor Godwin Obaseki is seriously, desperately trying to change, and thankfully, a lot of his measures to change and impact education positively in Edo state has now become a reality.
According to stats put out by the Federal Ministry of Education, amongst the 36 states and FCT, Edo state has the least number of out-of-school children: 79,446 children. But those are 79,446 children who should be in school receiving quality education, and not on the streets of Edo.
Even though massive progress have been made, there is still a lot to do about education in Edo state.
In many developed nation, education for children is a right, not a privelege. As such, the governor has stepped up his fight for child’s rights and education. The governor recently charged the ministry to do more. Even parents now will be held responsible for children not being in school when they ought to be. There should be no excuse. Every child deserves a good, quality education.
From the successful implementation of EdoBEST, to the recently introduced EdoBEST 2.0, the governor has taken it a step further with his recent announcement of a multi-campus system of the state owned colleges, with an aim to bring tertiary education closer to the people, and simplify the education process.
With the reforms on education by Governor Obaseki, this generation and the next generation of children in Edo state will be able to compete intellectually against any child anywhere in the world.
