The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo State has accused Governor Godwin Obaseki of laying a bobby trap to recruit 4,000 teachers to the incoming Okpeboro administration on Monday.
Naija News reports that Prince Kassim Afegbua, a member of the APC Transition Committee, made the accusation in a statement made available to journalists in Benin City on Sunday.
Afegbua claimed that the outgoing governor’s hiring of 4,000 teachers was done in bad faith.
He claimed that the recruitment was an attempt to overload the incoming government’s system.
Afegbua said, “Governor Obaseki throughout his tenure as the Chief Executive of Edo State has failed to recruit teachers who will reinvigorate the educational interests of the state.
“However, we are saddened by the sudden recognition in the twilight of his administration that the education sector now needs teachers.
“Another political attack by Governor Obaseki who is known to have ignored this training and used Edbest to defraud the people, the World Bank and other aid agencies, especially those who were allegedly recruited as teachers. It is appropriate to warn against this as a ruse.
“He was just using this project for personal and self-aggrandizement of his cronies. If he was thinking about what was good for the state, he should have made this hire long before his game was over. It was.”
He further asserted that the call confirmed APC’s position that the EdoBest project is a fabrication and is not in the interest of the people of Edo or the education system.
He alleged that the outgoing governor used the project for personal gain by toying with the future of the state’s children.
Afegbua said Obaseki’s predecessor, Adams Oshiomhole, hired 2,500 teachers in the twilight of his administration, but when he took office in 2016, the governor (Obaseki) hired people who had helped him gain power. He recalled how he blatantly stopped hiring him because of his hatred for him.
