By Magnus Emuji
Delta State Commissioner for Secondary Education, Mrs Rose Ezewu, has urged newsmen to be more engaged in developmental and issue-based reporting and shun sensational reportages aimed at blackmailing people.
Ezewu, who commended members of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) in the state for their effective publicity on the developmental agenda and policies of the Okowa led administration, frowned at some news bloggers who always indulged in creating issues by criticising the state government without informing the people of its achievements in critical sectors of the economy.
Reacting to a Daily Watch online report, alleging that public schools were in poor condition in Delta State, Ezewu described the report as baseless and amounted to discrediting the achievements of the state government in the education sector.
Ezewu said that the Okowa administration had continued to give priority attention to the education sector, adding that the state government would continue to sustain the upgrading of public secondary and primary schools in the state.
She wondered why some journalists who had seen the developmental strides of Governor Okowa in the education sector had not been reporting the same but had resorted to painting negative pictures of the state government in the education sector from their imaginations.
Ezewu assured that as an expert in the education sector, she would always contribute her quota towards the growth of the sector in the state, just as she disclosed that chairs and tables for students have been distributed continuously to various public schools in the state.
The commissioner further described the allegation by the online reporter that she was conniving with the Chief Inspectors of Education (CIEs) to extort parents as total falsehood and maliciously designed to tarnish her image.
She said that the approved registration levies for JSS1 students, seeking admission, was ₦1, 250 and ₦ 1, 050 for old students, proceeding to SS1, explaining that since the beginning of the first term of the ongoing academic session, she had embarked on aggressive campaign visits to public schools to sensitise teachers and principals on the need to avoid seeking and collection of any form of illegal fees in public schools across the state.
The commissioner said that since she joined public service and was later appointed as the State Commissioner for Secondary Education by Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, she had not been found wanting, let alone involved in extortion of parents through the CIEs, just as she disclosed that she had always been interfacing with the CIEs to ensure that only government-approved levies were collected in schools.
