Newly elected Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde took the oath of office alongside his deputy, Alhaji Rauf Olaniyan, on Wednesday, May 29th 2019.
Makinde immediately announced that his government is scrapping the N3,000 tuition per pupil in the state secondary schools, making this the first campaign promise he has fulfiled following his swearing-in to office.
The Governor said this while giving his inauguration speech after he was sworn-in. He said: “Effective immediately, the school fees of N3,000 in state-owned secondary schools is hereby abolished. We want enrolments to go up, we want our children off the streets and in the classrooms. We are throwing the school doors wide open. Whoever opens a school door opens an opportunity. We are opening opportunities for a brighter future,” he said.
Makinde also promised to invest more in the education sector in order to increase enrolment in public schools as well as to reduce the number of out-of-school children, which he put at 400,000 in the state.
He also added that his administration would open access to quality health delivery to the people, saying that existing health facilities would be upgraded.
Makinde also promised to donate his salary to the state’s “suffering pensioners.”
The governor, who admitted that the greatest challenge confronting the state was poverty, promised to tackle it with investment in agriculture.