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There is little doubt that the current minister of education Malam Adamu Adamu has displayed overwhelming aversion/repulsion for other faith-based affiliations in the determination of who to appoint into strategic national educational positions.
He is reported to have so marginalised his better qualified colleague- the minister of state for education Professor Anthony Onwuka to an extent that he made the man’s daughter-in-law a member of a non-attractive board of one rural federal college of education in a remote part of Rivers State which even made the Parents of the girl the governor of Imo state Rochas Okorocha and his wife to denounce this awkward appointment.
Since coming into office, this Kaduna-based newspaper columnist with no knowledge or experience of the educational system of Nigeria is alleged to have embarked on the deliberate planting of hardcore Islamists into the key educational policy making bodies in Nigeria including but not limited to the National university commission, Nigerian educational Research and development council (NERDC); Tertiary educational trust Fund (TETFUND) and the joint Admission and Matriculation examination board (JAMB) amongst several other strategic positions and board chairmanships.
Indeed the man manning the high office of the executive secretary of Joint Admission and Matriculation Board- a Professor of Islamic studies Mr Ishaq Oloyode is still the secretary General of the Islamic national council of Nigeria.
You would then imagine why in the first place why the erstwhile executive Secretary with better qualification in the core educational field was substituted with a professor of Islamic studies who still clings on to his religious job.
Professor Dibu Ojerinde who was removed as JAMB executive Secretary by Adamu Adamu is a reputable professor of Test and measurement in the Education faculty.
This one- sided appointments in the education ministry headed by a newspaper columnist are in clear breach of the Federal character principle enshrined in section 14(3) of the 1999 constitution(as amended).
For the purpose of direct emphasis, we may wish to recall that the aforementioned constitutional provision of 14(3) states thus:
“The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies”.
These clear infractions and vexatious violations of the Federal character principle may have occurred unchallenged because it is even said that the Federal character commission which is as institution set up to safeguard this sacred provision is itself in clear breach of the law because both the Chairperson (Shettima Bukar-Abba) and the secretary (Mohammed Bello ) are from the Northern section of Nigeria.
Besides, this highly inexperienced education minister may have derived motivation to sideline other ethno-religious citizens of Nigeria because the appointing authority for now-the president is directly in breach of the Federal character provision by concentrating top flight appointments to the Moslem Hausa/Fulani section of Nigeria in both the strategic defence portfolios and many other juicy top level national offices.
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At first when President Muhammadu Buhari named this little known newspaper columnist as the substantive education minister and downgraded a former University Professor and erstwhile Vice Chancellor of the Imo state University to become the minister of state under a neophyte, controversy flared up.
Questions were asked as to why the President elevated nepotism to the front burner and relegated merit and competence to the backyard.
Malam Adamu Adamu assumed duty and displayed some crass incompetence by handpicking persons of his own religious backgrounds as the key office holders in the federal ministry of Education.
The behavioural tendencies of the minister of education reminds me of what a Professor of Psychology in Harvard University Amy Cuddy wrote in her latest work that people judge you based on two criteria when they meet you.
In her new work titled “PRESENCE”, she says that people quickly answer two questions when they first meet you namely, can I trust this person? And secondly, can I respect this person?
Psychologists call these factors as warmth and competence, and ideally you will want to be perceived as having both.
With the furore raised by a lot of the bigoted actions of the education minister, it does appear that he may score double negatives if those two questions are asked about him.
Anyway, the above is not the Fulcrum of this piece because what we are set to speak about is even much more toxic to an extent that if no remedial steps are adopted immediately, there is the possibility of the religious war flaring all across Nigeria going by the fact that it is impossible for the education minister to successfully seek to impose the study of Arabic or Islamic studies on non-Moslems.
The controversial and criminal downgrading of the Christian Religious Knowledge to the less fancied position of a subtheme within the so-called civic education is unconstitutional and indeed a declaration of an unholy war against the Christian religion in Nigeria.
