Between Adamu Adamu and Abdullahi Bichi

Between Adamu Adamu and Abdullahi Bichi

Saturday letter 

Dr. Abdullahi Bichi Baffa, former Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), said that Malam Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education, orchestrated his sack from office because of his alleged refusal to pay 10 per cent kickback to contractors working for Malam Adamu.

I’m not pro or against Dr. Bicchi, neither do I hold brief for the education minister. However, the case of Dr. Abdullahi Bichi Baffa has brought to the fore two salient issues: the educational level of Nigeria’s political leaders has increased considerably, but good governance in the country has reduced drastically. Some of Nigeria’s poor administrators are from the academia.

The absence of an appreciable level of good governance in Nigeria despite the high educational level of its leaders is a strong indication that array of certificates in ones possession doesn’t matter, but the individual character and behaviour.

A professor or a PhD who teaches basic knowledge in the classroom, when given a political position or public office behaves like a motor park tout. Though, some educationists have observed that public office holders, who possess high educational qualifications and misbehave, did not earn such qualifications scholarly. Hence, they display disgraceful character in positions of authorities. Other people have also summed up the reason for the lack of good governance to the fact that most individuals in leadership positions in Nigeria are never prepared for the job.

In a nutshell, the Nigerian system is so corrupted that the easy way to secure a public office is to have the right godfather or belong to the political party in power, whether at the centre or in state and during electioneering campaign all that is needed of one is to climb to the podium, rain abuses on the opponents, shout the name of your political party and dance. Shikenan! Such system would never produce good administrators.

Zayyad I. Muhammad,

Jimeta, Adamawa State

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