FROM Berger Bus Stop, Lagos, one will need to climb three plank bridges to get to Akute/Esorun Community Grammar School, Ifo Local Government, Ogun State. Apart from the high cost of transportation provided by commercial motorcyclists that ply the decrepit road, a transit person must pay N50 to climb the quivering bridges to proceed on his journey.For almost a month, the school was submerged as the water from Oyan Dam overflowed its bank and ravaged the villages along Ogun River. Many houses, including the school in Akute and Esorun communities were not spared, they had all been swept away as pupils and residents vacated the area.For over three to four weeks, about 700 pupils of the school and their teachers hung around, waiting for the flood to subside. Some of the Senior Secondary School pupils who are preparing for the 2012 West African Senior School Examination. (WASSCE) have resorted to home lessons and extramural classes while their teachers now enjoy compulsory holiday.On Tuesday. When Nigerian Tribune visited the place, hundreds of parents and pupils carried placards with various inscriptions to protest the unresponsiveness of the state government to their plight.To them, the government has failed to intervene despite numerous reports by the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) on the perennial flood disaster in the school.Every morning, the teachers packed themselves under a shed located within a mechanic workshop, waiting for government's directive, which has refused to come. The pupils were free to roam the streets or engage in fishing game.The school's regulations and laws were not observed anymore. Even in their uniform, the pupils' attitude had quickly changed as they peeped to their future with little hope from the government.Only their parents stand behind them now but with very weak financial muscle. Most of them have resorted to public education because their parents lack the financial power to sponsor them to good private schools.Sadly, their hope looks bleak with no structure to learn, even when there are good teachers to teach them. 'We have not been doing anything for a month now. We only come around to see the intensity of the flood. To see how far it has dropped,' one of the school prefects, Adewale Peter, said.He is in senior secondary school and will be writing WASSCE soon. According to him, some of the pupils whose parents have the financial capability to enrol in private schools have been doing so while those who cannot have been left to their fate.'I'm one of those who cannot afford to go to a private school. So I have to wait for government to do something before I continue with my education. For now, we don't know what to do. We are ready to learn anywhere now to get prepared for the coming WASSCE,' Peter said.In her comment, another student, Miss Yetunde Jacob, had registered with an extramural class with N2,000 but lamented that the output at the coaching centre was poor.She said, 'I prefer my school teachers but the flood has rendered them idle. They teach us very well but the coaching class I go now has failed to impress me.'Jacob, 18, thinks that she is old enough to be in higher institution. She told Nigerian Tribune how she had defied the flood to swim to school, even when her mates refused to go.She said, 'Our focus is different. If it is not because our teachers stopped coming, I would have continued to go to the school with the aid of canoe. We can use canoe to ply the water but our classrooms are waterlogged.'Expressively, Jacob described the situation at Akute as pathetic, calling on the state government to come to the pupils' rescue. 'Our education is suffering now. I think we should be relocated because the problem is an annual occurrence,' She said.To a mother, Mrs. Ajoke Arowosafe, whose daughter, Peju, is also due to write WASSCE, the pupils suffer every year without government intervention to soothe their pains. 'My daughter, Peju, has been in this school for five years. I withdrew her from a private school to this public school because I could not cope with the school fees. But every year, Peju passes through this agony. I do not have rest again whenever the flood pushes the pupils out. For now, there is nothing I can do but to beg government to help us. Our children are suffering,' Arowosafe said.Speaking to Nigerian Tribune, the Chairman of the school PTA, Alhaji Olansile Agbonmagbe, said that the association had taken pictures of the ravaged school and sent to the Zonal Inspector of Education in Ifo Local Government Area of the state but nothing had been done.According to him, the executive members of the association had visited the state's Ministry of Education to inform the authority about the problem but nobody had come to see the extent of the damage on property and pupils.He noted that the problem had been around since the regime of Otunba Gbenga Daniel, who promised to do something but failed. He also said that the present governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, saw the ruins of the flood when he came to campaign in Akute prior to his election and promised to rectify it but nothing had been done.When she eventually spoke to Nigerian Tribune where she was sitting with her teachers, the school principal, Mrs. Oluyemisi Oredugba, said that every letter to inform Ogun State Government about the deluge had been written, urging the parents and pupils to wait for official directives from Abeokuta.'We are ready to work. Our teachers are always present to discharge their duties accordingly but we are waiting for government to take action,' the Principal said.
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