Federal Government says the reopening of schools in Oyo State amid the COVID-19 pandemic is insensitive to the health of the people.
Minister of State for Education, Mr Emeka Uwajiuba, said this at the Presidential Task Force briefing on COVID-19 daily news conference in Abuja on Monday.
Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State had earlier ordered the reopening of schools across the state.
But the minister said it was expedient to recognise the fact that Oyo State is a government operating under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as a Federating unit.
Nwajiuba said though the governor had the right to reopen the schools whenever he liked, the primary purpose of governance remained the security of its people.
He said the Federal Government had over 138,000 schools across the country and for the governor to open the schools was in the “very least insensitive.”
The minister, however, warned parents and guardians to securely keep their children and wards at home to protect them against contracting COVID-19.
The minister appealed to parents and guardians, whose children and wards would be writing the West African Examinations Council, to bear with the government, pending when the necessary arrangements would be made.
He noted that the government would do everything it could to help in the present circumstances.
Uwajiuba stated that the ministry had fixed a meeting with WAEC to discuss how it would arrange examination for the final year students and for revisions in their subjects to enable them to prepare well for their exams.