By Ola Ajayi

Ibadan—The decision of Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State to stop payment of West African Examination Council fees for final year students in public secondary schools has pitched him against his political opponents in Accord and the Peoples Democratic Party.

Gov Ajimobi

The governor, who is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC,  in the state said he stopped the payment of fees temporarily as one of the measures to ease the state of its present economic challenges.

The opposition parties had frowned at the decision describing it as anti-people measure.

But, defending the governor, his party, through Mr. Wale Shadare, the Director of Publicity, said the decision to suspend payment of the fees as well as the sponsorship of people on holy pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia and Israel were necessary in view of current economic challenges.

The party said; ‘’The governor deserves accolades for resisting the temptation to agree with some concerned individuals and groups who had come up with pieces of advice considered inevitable for the state to jerk up its internally generated revenue at all cost but the governor, out of his love for the masses, declined to accept most of the suggestions made as he was of the opinion that such would aggravate the suffering of the common man.

“We recall that the state government had earlier taken major measures in that direction and these include; reduction of cost of governance which brought about the pruning of ministries from 23 to 13, stoppage of daily feeding of fasting residents at Government House and distribution of food items to the needy during Ramadan fast, postponement of all political appointments, turning down of sponsorship requests from many partners and non-governmental organizations.

”Interestingly, all of these had little or no direct negative effect on the common and it was when further measures were needed to be introduced that the governor considered the options of WAEC fees and pilgrimage stuff.’’