Lagos — Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, former Lagos State governor, has hailed the private sector for jump-starting the Spelling Bee Competition among public school pupils in the state, when acute shortage of funds forced his government to face more pressing issues.

Tinubu, who spoke in Lagos at the weekend at the first Re-Union Luncheon of the Council of One-Day Governors, was responding to his wife's opening remark at the gathering, that her husband's government did not initially support the programme.

Mrs Tinubu, president of New Era Foundation (NEF) that organises the yearly Spelling Bee Competition and which organised the luncheon at Muson Centre Lagos, had jocularly declared herself "displeased" that her husband's government did not first support the programme.

But she praised the private sector for buying into the vision of raising future leaders through the Council of One-Day Governors which, she explained, comprised the three winners for each year, since the competition started in 2001, with the first of the three acting as one-day governor.

Mrs Tinubu also called for more sponsorship for the programme, particularly for past winners of the competition who would need scholarships to further their education after a first degree, and added that the luncheon was put together to sensitise key stakeholders on these pressing needs.

In his response, Asiwaju Tinubu said his government's response could not have been otherwise, given the serious re-engineering the state's near-bankrupt finances were going through, which included borrowing to pay salaries.

Citing as witness Alhaji Yacub Balogun, the current head of service in Lagos State but then secretary of finance and administration in the civil service who was at the occasion, Asiwaju Tinubu painted a grim picture of financial emergency that faced the state back then.

"When we had to borrow about N600 million just to ensure salaries were paid on the 25th of each month, and also had to grapple with the provision of some very basic amenities, somebody was talking of funds for one-day governor," Asiwaju Tinubu explained. "I turned it down and told her to look for sponsors."