BY GBENGA ARIYIBI
ADO EKITI—The Ekiti State Government has rolled out laws meant to keep pupils from the state in their classrooms

Henceforth parents or guardians who withdraw their child or ward from school in Ekiti State will be prosecuted by the state. Also hawking by children during the school hours has been outlawed.

Governor Kayode Fayemi announced this in Ijero Ekiti, while flagging-off the registration of children into primary one for the next academic session.

Fayemi who reiterated the commitment of his administration to quality education for children with emphasis on science and technology, said the free and compulsory education up to Senior Secondary School of his administration was part of his 8-point agenda to meet the year 2015 time line on Education For All, EFA, project.

The Governor said priority on the education was to enable the state “regain and retain its leading position as a reservoir where knowledge will be a major exportable product to other countries of the world.”

Meantime, about N.4million naira has again been distributed as cash palliative by the Ekiti State Government through the State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, to some of the victims of bank robbery attack which occurred in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital earlier this year.

Distributing the money to beneficiaries, the Deputy Governor, Mrs. Funmi Olayinka, sympathised with the victims on their various loses and condoled with those who lost a relative to the incident.

The Deputy Governor who went from one house of the victim to another to personally hand over the cash said the money was a demonstration that the government would not close its eyes to the suffering of any resident of Ekiti.

Mrs. Olayinka who was represented by her Special Adviser, Mrs. Kehinde Drarmola noted that the government was quite aware that the money given to them would not totally cater for their loses nor replace the relative lost to the incident but it would assist them in addressing some of their immediate need.

One of the beneficiaries, Mr. Samuel Sunday who disclosed that he lost his wife to the robbery attack thanked the government for the kind gesture and urged the government to find a means of enforcing banks to tighten security around their premises to forestall such occurrences in the future.