A group of teachers in Ogun State under the umbrella of Yayi Teachers has declared its support for the governorship aspiration of Senator Solomon Adeola, popularly known as Yayi, ahead of the 2027 governorship election, while dismissing allegations that its members were being compelled to endorse the lawmaker.
The position of the group was contained in a press statement made available to journalists on Saturday. The statement was jointly signed by the State General Coordinator of Yayi Teachers, Comrade Sunday Odunaro, and the State Secretary General, Mr. Taiwo Olusola Increase. The group, which claimed to have over 15,000 members across the 20 local government areas of the state, said its endorsement was voluntary and based on the senator’s contributions to the education sector.
Reacting to claims by a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party that teachers were being forced to support Adeola, the group described the allegation as false.
The statement read, “We are a group of teachers from both the public and private sectors with guaranteed constitutional rights to freely choose and vote for any candidate. Following our assessment of the state of education in Ogun State, we are irrevocably committed to endorsing Senator Solomon Adeola for governor.”
The teachers said the association was established about five years ago and had since inaugurated chapters in all the local government areas of the state.
According to the statement, “We decided to adopt Senator Adeola from our inception because of his outstanding and unparalleled performance in the education sector in Ogun State over the last three and a half years. We are not apologetic about our endorsement because no legislator or individual has made this magnitude of qualitative and quantitative contribution to education in the state.”
The group credited the senator with facilitating the construction of 87 classroom blocks comprising 12 classrooms each, 56 staff rooms and four ultra modern libraries across the state. It added that the projects had helped to reduce overcrowding in schools and improve the learning environment, alongside the provision of furniture and textbooks.
The teachers also commended Adeola for facilitating the construction of 13 Information and Communication Technology centres and eight skills acquisition centres, as well as training thousands of teachers and students in ICT, with laptop computers distributed to beneficiaries after the training.
The group further listed the facilitation of 2,636 scholarships valued at N200,000 each and 9,894 bursaries worth N100,000 each for Ogun students in tertiary institutions across the country among the senator’s achievements. It also cited his sponsorship of legislation that upgraded the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, to the Federal University of Technology, Ilaro.
The statement added, “We are also encouraged by Senator Adeola’s intervention for indigent candidates sitting the West African Senior School Certificate Examination and the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination. In 2026 alone, he paid the examination fees of 2,137 WASSCE candidates, while over the years he has sponsored more than 7,000 JAMB candidates of Ogun origin.”
The group maintained that its endorsement was based on the senator’s record in education and not on coercion.
“It is absolute falsehood to suggest that we were forced to endorse Senator Adeola. Our support is voluntary and founded on our constitutional rights as citizens and stakeholders in the education sector,” the statement added.
