Lagos Assembly asks Sanwo-Olu to give account of COVID-19 donations, others

State pledges to address teachers’ digital inadequacies
Lagos State House of Assembly yesterday asked the state governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to make it a point of duty to make recourse to the House on the spending of donations received to address Coronavirus pandemic in the state.

The House also charged the governor to make recourse to it before declaring a state of emergency even during a peculiar situation like currently being experienced on COVID-19 deadly pandemic.

The resolution followed the observation raised by the state Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Moyosore Onigbanjo (SAN), on a recently-passed bill tagged, “Coronavirus Pandemic Emergency Law, 2020.”

The Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, who presided over the plenary, stated: “We are not depriving the governor of his power. It is for him to make recourse to the House.

“It is our own duty to do what is right. It is for them to follow what we do in line with the Constitution. The law says they will come forward to give account of what they have expended.”

He said that it would be better to introduce a co-chairman from the Executive arm on incident command, and the co-chairman would be ready to face the House committee.

“Now that we have an emergency situation, there must be an independent account set up separately, otherwise, something is missing somewhere” he said.

Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government has said that it is totally committed to addressing the digital inadequacies of its teachers, who are critical to the realisation of Sanwo-Olu’s THEMES agenda

Chairman, Teaching Service Commission, Mrs. Olabisi Ariyo, who spoke at a meeting to flagoff the free orientation programme for the first tranche of teachers on Grade Level 8 -13 on digital training organised by Microsoft through ATB Techsoft Solutions Limited, said that the training was part of the conscious efforts of the commission to transform the Post-Primary Teaching Service into a digital-smart workforce.

She stated that the commission was ready to ensure its teachers are ICT-savvy, reason it partnered some technology professionals to set up digital platforms for capacity development of post–primary teachers in the state.

The Country Manager, Microsoft, Mr. Akin Banuso, who spoke earlier, said that the most important profession is the teaching profession, and as such, empowering teachers to achieve this onerous goal is a conscious innovative opportunity at improving them and ultimately, the students.

The Permanent Secretary, Teaching Service Commission, Mrs. Toyin Awoseyi, lauded the concerted efforts of the support team and Governor Sanwo-Olu for bringing Lagos State Post- Primary teachers on board as innovative educators.

Awoseyi said that the participants, on completion of the training, would be certified internationally by the organisers.