…accuse Dapo Abiodun govt of insensitivity
Ahead of this week’s resumption of school by exit classes students, parents of pupils in private secondary schools in Ogun State on Sunday protested the N25,000 COVID-19 test fee imposed on each student by the state government.
The angry parents protested on the streets to demonstrate their opposition to the imposition of such a fee for COVID-19 testing, which they argued should be free of charge.
The state government had made it mandatory for each of the students in boarding schools in the state to produce a valid negative COVID-19 test certificate before being allowed to return to school.
The government also directed parents to present their children for the test at designated places between Friday and Monday.
But the angry parents on Sunday besieged the MTR 250 bed specialist hospital, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, the designated centre for the pupils in Abeokuta, to protest the government’s decision.
The protest, it was gathered, was sparked off when the parents, who had gone to the centre with their children, were asked to pay N25, 000 each before the test could be administered on the pupils.
Eye witnesses said officials in charge of the facility then locked out many of the parents and their children to an escalation of the protest.
The parents, however, accused the government of insensitivity, saying asking them to pay N25,000 before a child could be tested, without being mindful of the current economic reality in the country, was the height of wickedness on the part of the state government.
Efforts to get the reaction of the Special Adviser to the Governor on Primary and Secondary Education, Ronke Soyombo, proved abortive.
As of the time of this report, Soyombo did not pick her calls and did not reply to the SMS message sent to her phone.