It was called a Black Monday, a day of rage and protest. Ofoloku community had mobilised 12 members representing men, women and youths of the community. They all wore black T-Shirts as they marched to the Ministry of Education in Lokoja.
Holding up placards which read several pro-education inscriptions, the protesters stood in the sun, refusing to leave without their demands. The State Commissioner for Education was forced to reckon with the protesters, he received their letter of protest and promised to incorporate their demands in the next budget line: “We requested for construction of additional classrooms in addition to the one built by ActionAid, we also requested for toilets in our school in order to stop the open defecation witnessed in the school’s surroundings. Those two demands have been met,” Alhassan Godwin said.
“The Black Monday Campaign signified the death of education in our community; we were mourning the death of our educational system. We know the value of education that is why we want to make sure that government comes to our aid,” said Godwin.
The protesters had valid reasons to mourn the decay of the educational infrastructure in the community; parents were already withdrawing their children from school because of the old structure, which is almost tilting, ready to collapse. The roofs were already thatched and rusty. The mud laced with cemented block structure is as old as the parents and grandparents of the pupils. It called for an emergency, for which the community responded with an organised protest to the Ministry of Education.
Godwin noted that their advocacy is not only towards the government, but they also embarked on sensitizations among themselves as community members. One of such instances was when they discovered the high rate of girls’ school dropout: “We observed very high female school dropout, we knew we had to do something to address it, so we called parents, community leaders, and religious leaders to help us promote the girl child education. It worked; now, there are more girls in secondary school, the transition from primary to secondary school is now high in this community,” Godwin said.