Date: 2019-10-18

Kwara State Government will spend about N100m to renovate the state library complex and use it as a launchpad for e-learning and temporary headquarters for the state's innovation hub, Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has said.

Abdulrazaq told the National Association of Nigerian Students at a meetings on Wednesday that the renovation work would begin very soon as part of his efforts to reposition the education sector in the state.

In a statement by Rafiu Ajakaye, his Press Secretary, Abdulrazaq said, "We are going to have an innovation hub here. I have recently visited the state library and it is in a bad situation. The books are not up to-date and the roof is leaking. The whole place is decrepit.

"So, we are going to spend N100m to fix it. Once it is fixed, we will begin our innovation hub there as temporary site. We will get some space there for e-learning process with free internet access so that people can go and do what they need to do."

The students were led to the meeting by the Chairman of the Joint Campus Students Union, Saheed Olosasa.

The governor also said his administration had jerked up bursary for students from N100m inherited from the last administration to N200m in the revised budget just passed by the Kwara State House of Assembly.

He added however that payments would be made directly to individual beneficiaries based on an online data base already being generated by the Ministry of Education.

AbdulRazaq also promised to ensure that students were carried along on issues affecting them, urging them to shun hard drugs and other habits that could be inimical to their future.

Olosasa, however, called on the administration to pay more premium to the needs of the students across the state. He appealed to the governor to revive the practice of giving subvention and operational buses to students' bodies as was done by the late former Governor Mohammed Lawal.