Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, has said he would scrap the N3, 000 being paid by pupils of all public primary and secondary schools in the state.
The new governor also promised to donate his salary to pensioners, attracting affection from Oyo residents on his inauguration on Wednesday at Obafemi Awolowo Stadium, Ibadan.
Makinde said Oyo’s greatest challenge was poverty.
He promised to address it with drastic leap in agriculture.
“Our region that housed the first university in Nigeria now has a state with the seventh highest number of out-of-school children. Over 400,000 children in Oyo State are out of school.
“Effective immediately, the school fees of N3,000 in state-owned secondary schools is hereby abolished. We want enrollments to go up, we want our children off the streets and in the classrooms. We are throwing the school doors wide open,” he said.
However, Makinde said the state was not capable of paying the new N30, 000 minimum wage.
“I believe the states should decide the minimum wage of their workforce based on individual realities. All states are not created equal, so it is against the principle of fairness to apply a blanket rule to govern them all.
“That being said, our plan is to make Oyo the first state to pay above the national minimum wage. We know this is possible. We have already set our plan in motion to make this possible. But, this requires time. We propose staggered increments,” he said.
