…plead for government urgent attention

It was planned as an attempt to reunite with teachers and students, years after they had left school. The journey had been prompted by old students’ inquiries on the school but it turned out to be one of anger after seeing the pictures of the awful state of the school.

They never anticipated that the once lush and edifying structures of the over 50-year-old erstwhile Church Mission Society (CMS) Anglican School would have become so unsightly.

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The classroom blocks, an administrative block that accommodated the principal, vice principal and bursar’s offices, staff rooms, a modern female hostel block, the best equipped science laboratory in Edo North, staff living quarters, two male hostel blocks and a rock solid refectory built at the take-off of the school in 1964 have been taken over by bush. Nothing anymore to tell the past of Edeki (Anglican) Grammar School, Otuo as collapsed and decadent structures are everywhere showing years of neglect by government.

Kehinde Uadia Imoohi, a lawyer and one of the old students, was short of words to capture the situation. Imoohi said: “It was unbelievable. I left the school in June 1978. I couldn’t believe that it was the same school I attended, all the buildings have collapsed. What are there now are two recently constructed classroom blocks that serve both the junior and senior secondary schools, there is nothing left of the school’s past to tell its history. How could this have happened to a school that, over the years, produced such great people that have contributed immensely in all areas of life to the development of our great state and country at large? How can a school taken over by government from the Anglican Mission suffer so much neglect and left in this monumental infrastructural and academic decadence?

Well, thank God for MTN, as we are told, that provided the school with 500 desks and benches after one of its students won a promo. The students, at a point, had to pay N2, 000 each to provide desks and benches in their classrooms. The teachers sit on chairs with broken legs. The situation can’t continue this way; we will work with government to salvage the situation.”

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Another member of the team that visited the school, Mr Stephen Isikpoje, added: “We don’t know who to blame for this? The entire premises are overgrown with weeds. The once expansive sports field has been swallowed up by a thick forest while land grabbers are having a field day on the school land. The perimeter fencing has given way and private buildings have sprouted in the school premises. The school has virtually lost all its prized possessions, it’s really sad.”

As recent as the 1980s when many of them graduated from the school, everything about it was perfect and it stood out among the many in the area in all fields – academics, sports and what have you.

Formerly known as Anglican Grammar School, Otuo, in Owan East Local Government Area of Edo State, before it was renamed Edeki Grammar School in 1973, when it was taken over by Government from the CMS, then-all male school, which was also turned into a male and female (mixed) school the same year, brimmed with a student population attracted from across the state. The teachers were celebrated and first class and they included expatriates who taught the physical sciences and mathematics. Now, apart from the fact that the school population has dwindled due partly to decayed infrastructure, the school cannot boast of any seasoned teacher anymore.

It was learnt that there are presently only two government teachers in the school and two National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) members. The embarrassing situation, as it has been in the recent years, is understandably being cushioned by the efforts of private individuals, all old students, who have taken it upon themselves to engage and pay teachers to teach in the school.

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“But for that, I can tell you that academic work would have long been history here as there would have been no teachers to engage students in many of the subjects,” the source lamented, urging the old students to work on government to refocus its attention on the school, post qualified teachers to the place and, if possible, restore boarding system there to make admission into the school once again attractive to non-indigenes.

The old students are, meanwhile, excited by the move of the state government as disclosed by Governor Godwin Obaseki to commence the rehabilitation of public schools in Edo and by an official of government who equally confided in them that a mini-stadium proposed for Owan East Local Government Area is to be sited in the school. While appealing to the governor to include the school among those to be rehabilitated and locate the mini-stadium in the school, the old students pledged to partner with the state government to improve the situation of the school, just as their external wing pledged to donate two heavy duty mowers to the school to halt the invading bush.