By Dr Abubakar Sani Mohammed
Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu, is a notable public figure, especially in Nigeria’s contemporary era. He is one intellectual and writer that is highly-cerebral.
Tahir Ibrahim Tahir, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, who is Talban Bauchi, described Adamu as thus: “Mallam Adamu Adamu is a brainiac thinker, an intelligent philosopher, and a highly skilled writer.
“Reading his articles takes one through a journey of an abyss of wisdom, an ocean of knowledge, and a repository of history. He is one of the brightest minds from the North.
“I was always drawn to him, marvelled by his writing on the backpage of Daily Trust every Friday. His art of writing always stimulated one’s intellectual thoughts..He was an artist with his English, and a sculptor with his writing.”
Before assuming office as the Minister of Education in late 2015, Mal. Adamu, had for years contributed to national discourse on the pages of Daily Trust as a prolific columnist.
Born on 25 May 1954, in Azare town of Bauchi State, Adamu received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, in Zaria.
He later received a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. Adamu is a polyglot who speaks Hausa, English, Persian, Arabic and French, fluently.
After graduating from the prestigious ABU Zaria, Adamu worked briefly as an accountant in Bauchi State civil service, before later venturing into journalism.
He began his journalistic career as a public analyst and writer on a variety of different themes and subjects; and he later got his first job with the New Nigerian Newspapers as Special Correspondent, and member of the editorial board of the New Nigerian group of newspapers in 1984.
Within a short period, he rose to become Deputy Editor of the New Nigerian newspaper and chairman of the group Editorial Board.
Adamu was also a back-page columnist [Friday Column] for Media Trust’s titles and contributed to many news outlets, including Canada-based Crescent International.
Adamu also served as a Special Assistant to General Muhammadu Buhari, then chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF. Before his appointment as Minister, in 2015, he was the secretary and member of the Muhammadu Buhari APC Presidential Transition Committee.
The well-rounded and highly-vast Adamu, has much more than his rounded education going for him.
Well connected to President Muhammadu Buhari, the Education Minister narrowly missed being appointed his Chief of Staff, CoS, in 2015. But analysts maintained that he has been unable to appreciably impact the Buhari government’s policy on Education generally, and the funding of higher education in particular.
Even after President Buhari promised, at an international forum that allocation to Education would be increased by at least 50 per cent in the next few years and by about 100 per cent by 2025, as recently captured in an article in this newspaper, allocation to the sector in the 2022 budget was a mere 7.9 per cent.
Not surprisingly, and following on the President’s example, not an additional Naira was added to Education when the National Assembly increased the budget from N16.4T to N17.1T, thus confirming how low the government rates Education.
For the benefit of hindsight, Buhari’s allocation to Education, in the last seven years, expectedly, has never exceeded 10 per cent. And you would naturally expect that a Minister of Education who appreciates the value of Education, and knows what the civilised world is doing in that regard, would have pushed for an Elephantine increase.
Of the N55.3 trillion budgeted by the Buhari government in the last six years, only N3.5 trillion was allocated to education, representing less than 10 per cent.
In 2016 it was 6.7 per cent, in 2017, it was 7.38; in 2018, 7.04 per cent was given to education out of a N9.2 trillion budget, while in 2019 it was 7.05 per cent of N8.92 trillion; and in 2020, 6.7 per cent in 2021.
Owing to these miserable allocations to Education, Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, a situation that is fueling banditry, terrorism and kidnapping, among other crimes.
Mallam Adamu Adamu, even when he was not the Minister of Education, I dare say, could not have pleaded ignorance of what is happening concerning Education and national development it helps to fast-track in other parts of the world.
According to Peter Hawkins, the UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, in a statement commemorating the International Day of Education 2022, Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world.
Ten and a half million Nigerian children who ought to be in school are out of it. That, he said, is more than the population of some West African countries. These kids, who are mostly from Mallam Adamu’s part of the country, have been wasting away, and wouldn’t hesitate to embrace all sorts of criminal vices.
Prior to joining the Buhari government, Adamu had devoted tremendous energy, dedication and commitment to champion a progressive education sector for the country.
But analysts are finding it hard to believe that Nigeria’s education sector, under his watch, is now in a state of coma, with no hope for a resuscitation.
Under Mallam Adamu’s watch, ASUU has gone on strike over five times, with the exception of teachers in polytechnics and colleges of education.
A social affairs commentator, Abdu Abdullahi, recalled, “When Mallam Adamu Adamu, the current Minister of Education, was writing for the Daily Trust newspaper, he wrote a very interesting piece captioned: Why ASUU is always on strike. It was published on Friday, November 15, 2013.
“In it, he made a brilliant and expository presentation justifying the ASUU strike then. He was able to draw facts by sharp comparisons between Nigeria’s backwardness on education as against the advancement of some other African countries. It was deliberately intended to attract the attention of the authorities to do the needful and rescue the system from total collapse.
“Going through that article diligently, one would be convinced that the available statistics he deployed to drive home his argument was fully articulated to champion ASUU’s struggle. That master- piece is still relevant in the prevailing situation of ASUU strike.
“You would have the conviction that if given the opportunity to handle the education sector, all the problems of ASUU would be solved and that he would cleanse the Augean stable of the university system, thereby entering the good pages of history.
“But as fate would have it, Adamu Adamu was eventually appointed education Minister and by another design of fate, ASUU is on strike again. But surprisingly, Adamu’s sensational writing of those days could not match the present dispensation as he is showcasing blatant aloofness to what he believed as a legitimate cause agitated by ASUU then”.
Without gainsaying, Adamu Adamu, is facing one of his most trying moments in managing the multifarious challenges in Nigeria’s education sector, as its Chief Driver.
Apart from the current ongoing strike declared by university teachers, the state of our ivory towers is not only alarming, but also predicts gloom in the nation’s hope of turning around the fortunes of education in the country, a writer said.
I will not conclude that Mallam Adamu Adamu has failed as a Minister of Education. But of what use is a man who writes extensively on the solutions to a problem, and fails when he’s called upon to implement his touted solutions? Who can tell us?