Nigeria Content Online

An Islamic
organisation, Association of Model Islamic Schools (AMIS), has faulted
the decision of the Oyo State government to ban food vendors in all
public primary and secondary schools in the state. AMIS, is the
umbrella body of all Islamic schools in the country. In an interaction
with journalists in Ibadan on Wednesday, AMIS said the government
should have devised a means of inspecting the food before they are sold
to the students instead of banning the food vendors from selling. The
government slammed the ban on Friday, after a rumour of food poisoning
created panick in the town, forcing parents to pick their wards from
schools for fear of being poisoned. The rumour had it that the state
governor, Adebayo Alao-Akala, was sponsoring food distribution in
schools to kill some pupils for rituals to guarantee his return to
office in April this year. The rumour was since denied by the
government claiming it was entirely false.

Tajudeen Salaudeen,
the national vice chairman of AMIS, who spoke on behalf of the group,
noted that the decision could force the pupils to eat whatever comes
their way since they have no choice. The press conference was called to
flag-off the association’s 12th annual conference of the organisation.
“Beheading is not the solution to headache, if government is banning
food vendors from selling from schools, can it ban them from selling
elsewhere and of course the students would find their way to wherever
they are and also be exposed to eating unhygienic food and in
unhygienic places.

“That will be
dangerous for the students unless the government is ready to provide
food for them. And if the government will do that, it must also be
extended to private schools because we believe the policy also affects
us. Let the food vendors be registered with teachers tasting the food
first. This is better than throwing all of them out into the
unemployment market,” he said.

Mr Salaudeen said
the rumour was the handiwork of desperate politicians, “politicians to
leave schools alone. They should not toy with the future of our
students because we know that politicians are behind it,” he said.

While calling for
more determined effort at advancing the course of education in Nigeria,
the cleric said, rather than imposing impracticable foreign ideas on
the local education, the government needs to involve everyone in
drawing educational policies that will suit the country.

“There was the need
to invite stakeholders, people who are managers in educational sector
before designing our educational policy. Most of the people who
designed our policies are people who sit down in their offices. People
who do not have anything to do with the system and the policy are often
alien to us and that is one of the reasons it has failed to achieve the
desired result.

There was the need to also look at what would sooth the environment.
It is not as if most of the policies are bad but there was no
consideration for our environment in designing such policies,” he
concluded.