POLITICAL NOTES
Last Thursday’s confession by the outgoing Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu that he knew nothing about the education sector when he was appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 should serve as a lesson to the incoming President-elect, Bola Tinubu not to allow ethnic and religious considerations to becloud his sense of judgment in making appointments into his cabinet.
The outgoing President Buhari was accused of nepotism in his appointments and this affected his performance in the last eight years.
In making his appointments, President Buhari was believed not only to have favoured a certain region and ethnic group but also put many round pegs in square holes because of ethnic and religious considerations.
Surprisingly, many sycophants and hypocrites who helped successive Nigerian leaders to fail, had described most of these lopsided appointments of incompetent officials as round pegs in round holes.
It is a shame to Nigeria that the longest-serving Minister of Education since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999, Adamu, admitted last Thursday that he knew nothing about the education sector he was appointed to supervise.
At a valedictory session with officials and heads of parastatals of the ministry, Adamu, who served for 91 months, reportedly confessed: “I didn’t know anything about the education sector when I was appointed minister except superficially. But when Buhari decided to make me Minister of Education, I called some people to assist me work on a policy document on education because I was a novice in the sector. I shared my idea with them and they assisted me greatly, and I remain grateful to them for these years,” the minister said.
No wonder his period as education minister witnessed many rots in the education sector.
It is on record that his tenure witnessed the highest number of industrial actions from tertiary institutions-based unions such as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), and Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (CEASU), among others.
Nigerians will remember his tenure as the period when their leaders lavishly celebrated the graduation ceremonies of their children in foreign universities while the children of the less-privileged Nigerians were at home for several months due to the protracted industrial actions by ASUU.
This is a lesson for Tinubu if he truly wants to rescue Nigeria from the rot of the last eight years.
