Ogun State Government has finally awarded house and cash prizes to the 2020 outstanding teachers, after a Dubawa report that questioned the continued delay in the award.
Dubawa in September had reported that three teachers who were announced as the 2020 best teachers in primary, junior and senior secondary schools categories in Ogun State were not given the prizes as widely reported in the media.
Findings by Dubawa revealed that the claim that Governor Abiodun gave house and cash prizes to the three best teachers in Ogun State was misleading.
Our findings revealed that while the key to the two-bedroom bungalow had been given to Mr Odeogbola Ayodele, the document that will officially make him the owner was not handed over to him.
Further investigation revealed that the claim that the two other outstanding teachers, Mr Abayomi and Mrs Adeyemi, were given N2.5 million and N2 million respectively was false.
While responding to Dubawa inquiry, the State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Waheed Odusile, had promised that the affected teachers will “soon” be presented with the award.
The affected teachers were on Thursday awarded the prizes at the 2021 World Teachers’ Day held at the Oba’s complex, State Secretariat, Oke-mosan, Abeokuta, the State capital.
The Ogun State Government also increased the number of awardees from three to eight, adding 1st and 2nd runner up positions to the outstanding teachers in all categories.
Administrative Bottleneck prevented the handover – Governor
While responding to the issue at the event, Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, attributed the delay in the presentation of the cheques to “administrative bottleneck”.
Governor Abiodun directed the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Professor Abayomi Arigbabu to present the cheques to the teachers before announcing the winners of the 2021 awards.
“I need to clear the air on some of the issues, particularly the last year merit awards… I want to apologise on behalf of the government for the delay in the handover of the awards.
“The Commissioner for Education, Professor Arigbabu would now present the cheque so that we can put that behind us,” the governor announced.
While presenting the cheques to the teachers, Professor Arigbabu said that the teachers will not be presented with dummy cheques but the ones that will be cashed or credited to their bank accounts.
The Commissioner thereafter presented cheques to eight primary, junior and secondary school teachers in Ogun State for the 2021 awards.
One of the 2020 awardees, Akinbiyi Mary Adeyemi, who had to wait for one year before collecting her prize said she is happy that “it came to pass. To cash the money is the issue, seeing is believing now”.
Meanwhile, the 2020 best teacher awarded house prize, Mr Odeogbola Ayodele was not at the event. It was gathered that he was on leave.
The 2020 best teacher in the senior secondary school category, Mr Adewale Abayomi, in an interview with Dubawa, was also elated after redeeming his cash prize of 2.5 million naira.
“On this, we give God all the glory for calling out my name for the special favor and for giving me the grace to get my benefit from the state government at last.
“Special thanks go to our amiable Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun (MFR) for honoring me as the Ogun State 2020 best teacher Senior Secondary School and fulfilling his promise.
“His excellency has shown us that the reward of teachers is not only in heaven but should also be here on earth”, Adewale said.
2020 best teacher awardee, Adegbola Ayodele, who hasn’t yet received documents to his house prize was not around during the presentation. He told Dubawa he would follow up once back from leave.
