The Anglican church has said it may drop Oyemekun Grammar School Akure and pick another school for the proposed take over of school from the Ondo state government if the Akure community insists on claiming the ownership of the school.
There had been controversies since the church announced that it planned to take over the school from the state government to ensure quality educational standard and values.
Claims and counter claims have followed the ownership tussle between Akure community and the Anglican Church Communion over the right owners of some schools to be returned to their original mission owners across the state by the Ondo State government.
The return of some schools forcibly taken over by the state government some decades ago from their mission owners has become a source of discord, tearing apart the community and the Anglican Church community.
The two parties, which are at loggerheads, are bickering over the ownership of the “government schools” which the Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu-led administration is set to hand over to the original mission owners.
The Anglican church said the reason for the taking over of the management of school from the government by the church was to ensure high moral standard, godliness and discipline among the students.
The Anglican Church Mission, however, said that it was ready to hands off the school if the Akure community insists and does not want to surrender it to the Mission.
Reacting, the Anglican Bishop of Akure Diocese and Archbishop of Ondo Ecclesiastical Province, Revd Borokini, insisted that Oyemekun Grammar School, Fiwasaye Girls Grammar School and some other schools were founded by the Anglican Church.
He said: “May be they are not aware that when you are talking about the community, you are also talking about the churches. So, you cannot separate the churches from the community.
Who were the people that composed the community at that particular point in time? We have the records, but many of the people in the community have the records and unless they want to deny their history, they can claim that a school, like Oyemekun Grammar School belongs to the community.
“In the case of Fiwasaye Girls Grammar School, it used to be Fiwasaye Anglican Girls Grammar School. But, at some point in time, they decided to remove the Anglican from the name of the school. Also, we have schools like the Ondo Anglican Grammar School, which is very close to the Bishops’ Court, and at a point in time they also removed the Anglican from the name. Today, the school is being referred to as Ondo Grammar School.”
On the reason the school was named Oyemekun Grammar School, and not named after any Anglican Saints, the cleric said that “it doesn’t matter if the school was named Oyemekun Grammar School. We named some churches after personalities and some Saints.” For instance, the Bishop Gbonigi Anglican Church in Oke-Aro, Akure, Revd Borokini pointed out, does not make Bishop Gbonigi’s family the owner of the church.
“For the mere fact that the school was built and named Oyemekun Grammar School does not make it a community school. It was both the community and the church that worked together to build the school,” he added. The Bishop, however, noted that if the community does not want the church to take over the school, there are other schools the church will focus on to take over.
The Bishop further stressed: “So, it is for their benefit and that of the entire people of the state, but if the community said they are not ready to allow the mission to take over the school, we have other schools. What we are doing is that we don’t want posterity to judge us in future, because we do not know what leaving the school to the government could lead to.
“Since the Roman Catholic Mission has taken back their schools, we Anglican Church Mission also cannot fold our hands. We also want our school back. “So, if they are not willing to give up the schools to the mission, there are other schools that we would take over. If they do not want something that is Godly, it is left for them.
And, again, it is whether or not they are happy with the level of moral decadence in the school and the atrocities being perpetrated by the students.”
Source: New Telegraph
