Kwara State Gov­ernor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, yesterday said government is ready to return missionary schools to the owners as be­ing demanded by Christian denominations.
Ahmed disclosed this against the backdrop of protest by some Christians who dem­onstrated in Ilorin demanding that government should return schools to them.
According to Ahmed, gov­ernment had reached out to the state House of Assembly seek­ing the repeal of the 2006 Edu­cation Law, which would give the government power to return the schools to their owners.
He described the protest as unnecessary because govern­ment, based on request from Christian leaders, had started the process of returning the schools.
The governor explained that government would be contra­vening the law to return the schools without the law being passed.
He said: “There are two types of schools; the first one is government-owned and the second one is private-owned but government-grant aided. The government-owned are straight-jacketed; the grant aided ones have entered into agreement with the govern­ment under Kwara State Education Law on how grant-aided schools are supposed to be run.
“As a matter of fact, it is premised on this that govern­ment says, ‘ok, since there are desires by certain individu­als and groups to take back their schools, government is also willing to give back their schools to them. However, the enabling law that is mak­ing them run under the current grant-aiding process has to be taken back to the House of As­sembly for repeal or replace­ment with a new law that will enable government give back the schools to them.
“The law is already in the House of Assembly, they would soon call for public hearing. So I don’t understand what the grouse is all about, he said.

We’re ready to return missionary schools but … –Gov Ahmed