The Managing Director of El-Samirad Facilities Services Limited, Prince Dare Eluyemi, has criticized the former governor of Osun State, Mr. Gboyega Oyetola, who is now the Minister Designate of Transportation, for refusing to engage the services of other facility maintenance companies after sacking those engaged by his predecessor to maintain the eleven mega high schools constructed in the state before his emergence as governor.
In an exclusive chat with Osun Defender, Mr. Eluyemi chronicled how the plan to sustainably put the schools in good shape and to good use was truncated by the administration of Mr. Oyetola over what he called ‘political difference’ with the previous administration in which he served as Chief of Staff for Eight Years.
Good morning Mr. Eluyemi, can you tell us about yourself?
I am Prince ‘Dare Eluyemi, a Prince from the source, Ile Ife, and the Managing Director of El-Samirad Facilities Services Limited with subsidiaries in Facility Management, Contract Management, Construction, and Food Production industry.
What is your take on the fuel subsidy removal and the floating of the naira, and how has it affected your business in general?
The subsidy removal increased fuel prices and increased food and transportation costs across Nigeria and its neighbouring countries over the last two months. These two policies have affected the cost of transportation and food items, including the cost of production for those of us in the maintenance and food production businesses.
The foreign exchange rate is another factor that has affected those of us in the food production businesses, especially those making use of flour. Flour was sold at N30,000 per bag but as of today, it’s sold at N37,000 per bag. The implication of this is that the end products of flour will experience an increase in price thereby affecting households. This is a tough time in our country and I believe our Government is re-assessing those policies to make it bearable for the citizens.
As a citizen of Osun who has witnessed different political administrations in the state and of course, an employer of labour, what is your assessment of the state of education today, especially considering the quality of labour you employ in your organisation.
When Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, assumed office as Governor in November 2010, the education sector in the state was gravely diseased and required urgent attention. Osun was miles behind other states in the South Western geo-political zone in the percentage of secondary school pupils that recorded credit passes in five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics. In addition, less than three percent of secondary school leavers met university admission requirements. After consulting with various stakeholders in the education sector through its education summit, the State Government of Osun adopted an education policy that is deliberate, bold, comprehensive and holistic in its response to a scandalous education rot. It took steps towards improving the quality of Secondary School Education in the state by building and operationalising eleven (11) world-class high schools across the state. These schools have a capacity for three thousand (3,000) students each and were established to promote the all-round development of its students into first-class scholars and cultural icons, through functional and character-building education that delivers virtuous, confident, productive, problem-solving, critical, creative thinking, collaborative, entrepreneurial and responsible citizens.
As part of its new educational policy regarding the running of the model high schools, the then State Government of Osun floated the Omoluabi Education Services Limited (OESL) to manage and supervise the eleven (11) Model High Schools in the state. The Mission of OESL is to coordinate the running of world-class high schools to produce students that can match and be better off than their counterparts at the national and international levels. it was also imperative to engage Facility Managers who are expected to handle the maintenance of the buildings.
In 2017, OESL engaged different indigenous facility management companies after thorough screening to ascertain the level of their professionalism in the maintenance of such mega facilities. My company scaled through and Ilesa Government High School was allocated to my company. We were saddled with the responsibilities of electrical maintenance, cleaning, infrastructure maintenance, gardening and horticulture, plumbing, and the total facility management of the school.
What were your terms of engagement?
Before the undue termination of the contract of the Facility Management Companies’ by the administration of the former Governor Gboyega Oyetola due to political considerations, each mega school had a Facility Management Company saddled with the responsibilities of maintaining the infrastructure and giving periodic reports to the Ministry of Education/OESL.
In specifics, we were to carry out daily electrical maintenance, cleaning, infrastructure maintenance, gardening & horticulture, plumbing, and the total facility management of the mega school.
The current Commissioner for Education in Osun State, Mr. Dipo Eluwole was reported to have said the buildings were not maintained, isn’t that an indictment on you? To quote him, he said, ‘the administration of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola built infrastructure without thinking of its maintenance’. What is your take on that?
Well, I must say the new Commissioner for Education may require proper and accurate briefing from the former operators of those schools before they were sent packing by former Governor Oyetola without any tangible reasons. I can authoritatively say that as of today, no one has better information than I do in terms of the management of those mega schools. So, whatever I say remains unarguably the reality.
We ran the project efficiently until the administration of Governor Gboyega Oyetola stopped the payment for the maintenance of the schools on political grounds. I guess he had political differences with his predecessor whose administration engaged us. The former Governor claimed that scrapping the body (OESL) supervising the mega schools and by extension, the Facility Management Companies was part of the recommendations of the committee set up by his Administration to look into the education policy of his predecessor (Aregbesola). So by scrapping OESL by extension, they claimed they had to terminate the engagement of the Facility Management Companies maintaining the infrastructures too. Please note that students were still making use of the Mega schools without maintenance for about 6months. You can imagine the state a building in use would be without maintenance for over six months. So after the sixth month, Oyetola sent a team to inspect the schools and they came up with reports that those schools were poorly built when he was the one who terminated the engagement of those in charge of maintaining them.
It was an orchestrated operation to discredit the school’s infrastructure put in place by Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s Administration. The former Commissioner for Education, Mr Folorunso Bamisaye, who I think is well educated knows that once a facility management company is withdrawn from a school that is still in use, the school will definitely be in deplorable condition. So it was their plan to later come up with reports that the schools were poorly built as a defense for withdrawing students from the schools for mere and cheap political gains. Osogbo Government High School, Ilesa Government High school among others were in proper use with good maintenance not until the facility managers were sent packing. There was never a case of non-performance against any facility manager at any point in time. We did our jobs well.
So what would you advise the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke on the utilisation and maintenance of the facilities even as they go into another Education summit in Osun on Tuesday?
In order to effectively utilize the school, it becomes a straightforward task provided that Governor Ademola Adeleke’s administration is genuinely committed to rectifying the rot that was established during the tenure of former Governor Gboyega Oyetola. The new Government needs to conduct a Maintenance Gap Analysis (MGA) of each of those schools, repair them, and return students back to the magnificent facilities. These buildings will enable the students to learn in a conducive atmosphere as we all can attest to the fact that students from those schools can compete with students of private schools which is actually one of the motifs of setting up such mega schools in the first instance.
