Had Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola’s presidential mandate not been annulled in 1993, the nation would have enjoyed free, qualitative education at all levels it has been learnt.
An educationist and Afenifere chieftain, Pa Seinde Arogbofa, stated this in an interview with our reporter.
Pa Arogbofa was engaged by the late Abiola, presidential flagbearer of defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1993, to draw up his education policy ahead of the historic June 12 elections.
Abiola was clearly leading in the results announced by the then National Electoral Commission (NEC) until June 23 when military President Ibrahim Babangida cancelled the poll via a national broadcast.
Pa Arogbofa said Abiola invited him to Lagos for the assignment after winning SDP’s presidential ticket at the Jos, Plateau State capital, primaries in March of that year.
The account is contained in his new autobiography, titled: To The Star Through Bows and Arrows, due for public presentation to mark his 80th birthday this week.
A one-time National President of ANCOPSS (All Nigeria Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools), Arogbofa is the Secretary General of Afenifere.
He writes: “By 10 a.m that Sunday (in 1993), he (Abiola) was already waiting for me in his Ikeja residence. He received me warmly, led me to Kudirat’s (the senior wife’s) apartment to introduce a lost friend to her and joked with his daughters that they should not be carried away or seduced by my youthfulness because I was as old as himself.
“After breakfast, he commissioned me to prepare his blueprint on Education and gave me some money to offset my traveling expenses. I was thrilled at the confidence and the assignment which I knew if well done would land me in a comfortable place in his cabinet, if he eventually became President.”
On returning to his Akure, Ondo State capital base, Arogbofa said he, in turn, decided to co-opt three others experts with the state Ministry of Education.
“These were: Mr. J. O. Arodudu, a senior of mine in Victory College, Ikare; Dr. Adewuya, a friend from Ifaki Ekiti and Mr. Ajayi, from Akure. We completed the assignment far ahead of the stipulated time. We entitled the document ‘Qualitative Free Education’ to have a mass appeal in line with (the late Chief Obafemi) Awolowo’s free education philosophy. It covered all aspects of Western education. We offered suggestions on funding and discipline.”
Read also: Soyinka, Falana, others lay wreath on Abiola’s grave
For completing the assignment ahead of the original deadline, Arogbofa recalled that Abiola was so elated and impressed that he compensated him financially.
“Then, he went into his room and offered me some money to cushion the effect of my labour in preparing the ‘fine’ document on time and to offset the cost of the production of the document, concluding that he was impressed that unlike some other people, I did not even put a price when he gave me the assignment. This was on May 8, 1993, when I went to present the document to him in Lagos,” Pa Arogbofa recalled.
Going down memory lane, the author said his path and that of Abiola first crossed fortuitously between 1972 and 1974 when he was vice-principal in African Church Grammar School, Oka-Akoko, Ondo State.
“I hosted MKO Abiola and his wife, Simbiat, for about three days in the school when they came for the burial rites of the uncle of Brig.-Gen. Francis Aisida, my primary school classmate and a bosom friend,” said Arogbofa.
After that encounter, the educatioonist said he and Abiola struck up friendship and exchanged correspondence regularly for many years until they lost touch.
But they reunited when Abiola joined the presidential race in 1993, he said.
Arogbofa’s book is slated for public presentation next Saturday in Akure.
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