By Ibrahim Ramalan
Abuja
There are strong indications that President Muhammadu Buhari’s desired reforms in education may, after all, remain a dream, following a cold war brewing between the Minister, Adamu Adamu, and the Minister of State, Professor Antony Anwukah.
Education analysts told Blueprint that the frosty relationship between the two ministers is greatly hindering the effective implementation of the President’s policy thrust in the sector.
The crux of the matter, according to sources in the ministry, is the inability of the senior minister to involve others in decision-making on the day-to-day handling of the affairs of the ministry.
The sources said the crisis between the ministers reached a crescendo when the senior minister allegedly recommended his friends to the President for appointments as heads of agencies under the ministry.”You know before now the agencies in the ministry were always shared between the senior minister and the minister of state. Agencies like NUC, TETFund, NBTE, NCCE among others that fall within the purview of tertiary education are supposed to be handled by the Minister, while those in basic education like UBEC, NMEC, NECO and others are supposed to be handled by the Minister of State, but Adamu Adamu is now the one overseeing all the agencies,” one of the sources said.
It was learnt that this act was what finally set the two ministers on war path after a long frosty relationship that has existed between them.
Another disagreement brought to the public domain was when the Office of the Minister of State announced an increment in the school fees of Federal Government Colleges, which the senior minister swiftly rejected.
The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Dr. Folasade Yemi-Esan, also admitted that the federal government had increased the fees, saying that the increment, which focuses on boarding fees, was to meet up with the cost of running the schools.
But, speaking at an interactive session with journalists in Abuja, Adamu Adamu said the news of the increment from N20,000 to N75,000 was strange to him. “I am not aware that the unity school fee has been increased. As the Minister of Education I am not aware, but I will try and find out,” he said.
The junior minister is said to be shunning events that attract the presence of the senior minister. He was said to have boycotted the inauguration of the newly appointed chief executives of the agencies under the ministry. He was also absent at the flag-off of the 2016 Teachers’ Professional Development in Abuja last week.
This development, according to sources, has created so much confusion and misunderstanding within the education sector.
But, the Chief Press Secretary to the Minister of State, Mr. Anthony Akuleme, in reaction to the allegations described it as mere speculations. “The two ministers are always together, riding in the same car, sharing kola nuts. On the appointments, they were all at the instance of presidency, there is no frosty relationship.
“Even when the Director General of UNESCO visited Nigeria, the three of them rode the same car to the Villa. Yes, it is true that the Minister was absent at the UBEC assignment but that does not give room for Nigerians to insinuate that there is a strained relationship between the two ministers,” Anthony said.
Meanwhile, a non-governmental organisation, Citizens for Leadership, Education and Development (CFLED) has called on the President to immediately call the ministers to order so that the crisis between them would not derail his planned reforms in the sector.
In a statement signed by its Coordinator, Mr. Sylvester Ugochukwu Ezenwa, the organisation said the feud between the ministers is capable of truncating the lofty ideals the present administration wanted to achieve in the sector.
The organisation also appealed to the President to release funds to universities for the implementation of projects captured by the Committee on Needs Assessments of Nigerian Universities (CNANU).
Specifically, the organisation asked the President to direct the Governor of Central Bank Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, to release the N760 billion intervention funds to the universities
