The Proprietor and Founder of Thomas Adewumi College, Oko in Irepodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, Dr. Johnson Adewumi, has promised more prestigious awards for the school, citing more proactive decisions to reposition it to a higher pedestal.
Despite its galaxies of awards across post primary institutions, international students level and Commonwealth, the proprietor said the school has been repositioned to garner more awards and produce more egalitarian leaders for the nation.
Adewumi however decried the high rate of taxes slammed on owners of private educational institutions in Nigeria.
Some of the awards include 2007 Best Post-Primary School Award by National Association of Nigerian Students; 2008 West African Students Union Golden Achievement Award for Excellence in Ghana; and 2014 House of Representatives Committee on Education in recognition of TAICO’s remarkable standard in knowledge impartation and effective school administration.
Besides, some of the students of the college had represented Nigeria at international fora, winning laurels in the process.
In 2006, Julius Adebayo represented Nigeria in the World Finals of the Science Olympiad in Jakarta, Indonesia and won the Bronze, having obtained the best marks among all the African participants at the event.
Ologunde Fodunbosade won both state and National Award in Informatic Olympiad organised by the National Mathematical Centre, Abuja.
Fodunbosade in the process represented Nigeria in the World Informatic Olympiad n Kazakhstan in August 2015.
Adewumi, who sharply criticised the nomenclature used to slam taxes on private schools in Nigeria, said such institutions are established for revival of the lost status of the nation’s educational standard rather than monetary gains.
He canvassed a more friendly tax policy to keep the proprietors in the endeavours.
He spoke at the weekend during the grand finale of the 20th year anniversary of the establishment of the internationally acclaimed post primary institution.
The school also runs ‘A’ levels programme.
According to Adewumi: “People think that education is an investment in Nigeria or elsewhere in the world.
“It is not.
“We see it as a call to invest in people’s lives and contribute our quota to the growth of education in Nigeria.
“Government comes here and asks us to pay about N3.5 million every year as ground rents.
“Government should not see education as a commercial venture.
“Instead, it should commend the efforts of the people using their resources to invest in standard education.
“For instance, Adewumi has no business investing in education if the government is doing the right thing in that sector.
“We give countless scholarships to indigent students, just as we had produced many leaders and technocrats who are well tutored to take over the duties of leadership in Nigeria.”
The TAICO leader, while disclosing other charitable endeavours carried out by the school to the Oko community as it Corporate Social Responsibility, said it had built a 26-bed capacity hospital for the use of the community and its adjoining settlements.
The hospital was fully equipped by the British High Commission in Nigeria and has in its services two medical doctors and six nurses.
Adewumi, who used the occasion to fete his friends and pioneer staff of the school, including his wife, Gloria, disclosed how he had used the school to engender harmonious relationship between the host community and the Fulani cattle rearers in Oko.
He said he had given countless scholarships to many Fulani children in the town up to private university level.
The development, he noted, had knitted the people together with peaceful relationship.
Adewumi, who sharply criticised the looting spree in Nigeria, said “thugs are majority of the leaders” of the nation.
He urged Nigerians to stop celebrating the people “we should all crucify”.
For Adewumi, President Muhammadu Buhari cannot exclusively fix Nigeria, just as he opined that no Nigerian politician deserves any award at the moment, citing poor governance.
For the Principal of the college, Dr. Roy Lillyman, the school, with zero tolerance for examination malpractices, said any student that was not thoroughly brought up would become an endangered professional in future with damaging consequences to the socio, economic and political growth of the nation.
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