Date: 2017-10-05

It was an aura of elation as yesterday 4th October, 2017 marked the grand finale of the distribution of instructional materials to the pupils of basic schools in Kwara State by the Distinguished Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki. The programme held at the Constituency Office of the Chairman of the 8th National Assembly kick-started around 9am.

The dignitaries in attendance apart from the Director General, Hon. Abdulwahab Issa, the Deputy DG, Alhaji Dare Garba, the Directors and members of staff of all the directorates of the constituency office, were Kwara SUBEB Chairman, Alhaji Abdulwahab Bolakale Lawal, the Special Assistant to Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Intergovernmental affairs, Alhaji Bokale Ajanaku, the Education Secretaries of Asa, Ilorin East, Ilorin South and Ilorin West local governments respectively, Head Teachers of Basic schools, members of All Progressive Congress in the state and a host of others.

This remarkable event witnessed even distribution of instructional materials which included textbooks (Mathematics, English Language, Basic Science and Technology, Islamic Religious Studies) and thousands of notebooks and instructional charts which would help achieve effective learning on the part of the pupils.

The Director General of Sen. Bukola Saraki's Constituency Office, Hon. Abdulwahab Oladimeji Issa, while giving his abridged opening remark, asserted that Senate President is a man who has unquantifiable passion for future of the incoming generation in not only Kwara State but Nigeria in entirety. This informed him the need to come up with this fruitful programme, to further enrich the quality of education at the basic level in Kwara State. He then implored the head teachers that the materials were not for sale and that they should ensure that teachers and pupils utilize them judiciously and effectively, so that the predetermined goal could be achieved.

Furthermore, the Director of Project and Empowerment at the Senate President's Constituency Office, Mallam Olayinka Ibrahim Otukoko, explained in his own remark, that Saraki's Education Development Programme (EDP) is partitioned into two. The first phase focused on improving the condition of infrastructural facilities in basic schools. This has recorded tremendous success as 47 blocks of classrooms and 10 Information Communication Technology (ICT) centres had been successfully completed in schools across the four local governments (Ilorin West, Ilorin East, Ilorin South and Asa) in Kwara Central Senatorial District. The second phase is the Students' Capacities Building programme in which there is distribution of instructional materials such as textbooks, notebooks, and charts which has reached its climax yesterday.

During the programme, shortly after materials were handed over to the Education Secretaries of the four local governments, they, on behalf of the instructors and pupils, appreciated good gesture of the Senate President and prayed for more elevations for him. They also, specifically, promised to do justice to the sharing of the materials to the students as charged by the Director General of the Constituency Office, Hon. Issa.