FORMER proprietor of Community Grammar School, now named State Community High School, Akowonjo in Alimosho Local Government Area, Ambassador Oluwole Babatope, has reiterated his call to have his school which was seized from him in1979 returned.
The 68-year-old visually impaired administrator has sent a Save-My-Soul appeal to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu after several attempts to get the previous administrations of Bola Tinubu, Babatunde Fashola and Akinwunmi Ambode to effect his wish was fruitless.
Babalola said his school was taken over during the free education programme of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) by Governor Lateef Jakande in 1979.
According to him: “Efforts made for compensation by Alhaji Jakande was aborted by the Buhari coup of 1983. All efforts made since then with succeeding administrations have met a brick wall, especially when Asiwaju Bola Tinubu returned some schools to ex-proprietors during his administration. At the time, I was financially and medically unfit, suffering from glaucoma.”
On why he waited for so long to demand compensation, he said: “They told me they would communicate with me. Towards the end of 1983, I went to Jakande, he asked why I didn’t come for follow up. I told him they were the ones who told me that they would inform me when ready.
“As he was trying to set up a committee for the compensation, it was aborted due to a coup d’état in 1983. I went back to the governor’s office, I met a military man and I was told there was no access to the then military governor. Despite the series of letters written by me, there was no response.
“I want to use this medium to make a passionate appeal to the Lagos State government under the leadership of Babajide Sanwo-Olu to please come to my aid and bail me out of my predicament. I cannot see and I have a family to feed.”
