One of the defining features of any leadership situation is the measure of discretion which is applied to challenges that crop up. Hence is located the Shakespearean cliché which states that discretion is the better part of valour. The cliché simply holds that actions – especially when such are to be taken by leaders, should be weighed against the attendant consequences, especially when such can be anticipated. This condition confers on the cliché so much gravitas that renders it a maxim for sensible action at any time, and under any circumstance. For persons in public office, to be guided by such a maxim remains an imperative given that his or her actions and proclivities remain open to public scrutiny as judgment of such may be based on both personal standards as well as the expedients of public service.
It is in this respect that the recent triology between the Minister of Education Mallam Adamu Adamu, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), qualifies for further interrogation beyond the trending reports of the proclivities by each party. This is necessary to lay bare some wider perspectives on what Nigerians want from the country’s education sector, as distinct from what the establishment is limiting itself to deliver. In this context is the office of the Minister of Education Mallam Adamu Adamu, which came into spotlight recently from the wrong angle.
An off-the-cuff comment by the President of NANS Sunday Asefon, during a meeting last week Monday, between his students’ delegation and the Minister of Education in which the former made reference to how the latter had recently celebrated his son’s graduation from a foreign university, while superintending over a compromised university system in the country. This comment so irked the Minister and ignited an unintended response from him, whereby he walked out on the meeting unceremoniously. Ever since, public perception of the development had been varied. While several commentators see crass insolence in the attitude and comment of the student leader, others see a display of intolerance at such ‘effrontery’ by the Minister. Adamu eventually came back to the meeting in a face saving gesture.
Critical as the underlying issue being the collapsing edifice of university education in the country is, and had engaged the nation’s attention courtesy of the ongoing ASUU warning strike action, it should ordinarily be out of place for a largely avoidable twist in the meeting between Adamu as Minister and NANS to compete for prime attention with the main issue of the day. Yet it has been trending and is being celebrated as another ugly face of the country.
Seen in perspective, it is undeniable that but for this tiff between the Minister and NANS leadership, the character of the ASUU/FG brouhaha would have remained at least in the public domain, the old ding dong affair where agreements are reached, ASUU waits for the Federal Government to act or dithers or even reneges outrightly and the country is brought back to another round of ASUU warning or full scale strike.
The meeting between NANS and Adamu was at the instance of the latter, ostensibly with the intention of dousing tension which had spread nationwide among Nigerian university students, who had in turn been forced out of their campuses in rage, over the shutdown of their institutions courtesy of the ASUU strike. As at the last count the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) wing of NANS, has called for the resignation of Adamu Adamu as Minister of Education for the failure of his ministry to resolve the long standing face-off between the lecturers body and the Federal Government. Of course, with the benefit of wider insights, the grouse of the CNG wing of NANS is easy to appreciate, as it tallies with the concerns of yet other interests, over Adamu’s tenure as Minister of Education, especially those who expected more from his tenure.
Given the culture of insensitivity and impunity in the standard disposition of not a few high level government officials to public outcry over burning issues of the day, it is not likely that the clamour for Adamu’s resignation – just for snubbing the NANS leadership or lack of traction in the country’s education sector, will see the light of day. Yet that does not reduce the odious import of the shenanigans in his ministry which the off-the-cuff outburst of the NANS President actually alluded to, by deliberately skewing facts to inveigh on the personal circumstances of the Minister.
But for the enviable antecedents of Adamu Adamu as a trained accountant and who through superlative enterprise established himself as a respected public opinion engineer in his capacity as a top ranking journalist, this piece would have been out of place, as the normal run of the mill minister in the present administration of President Muhamadu Buhari would not care a hoot about the burden of this article. But not so for Adamu Adamu, who had been saddled with the burden of viewing society from a position of high moral ground and must have expressed his own views about how education in Nigeria needs to run. Clearly the present state of affairs could not have been his dream. Having plied the journalism trade with so much flourish and earned public acclaim as a change advocate, his advent into public office expectedly attracted the hope that he would translate from a change advocate to a change agent.
This is the burden of all who go into public office with a surfeit of public acclaimed credibility. Society hardly forgives them when they err, just as only a few remember and acknowledge them when they deliver rightly. It is also in the same context that bridge builders are often remembered if and when such bridges collapse. And Adamu Adamu cannot be an exception having gone into the dizzying and corrupting precincts of Nigerian politics, as well as ministerial appointment in the context of a goldfish without a hiding place, in a pool of marauding sharks and piranhas.
As at now, the incipient meltdown of the country’s university education system continues unabating, with the two parties of the Federal Government and ASUU still dug in in their respective positions. Yet this is as the Federal Government remains for all practical intents and purposes, the deciding factor for any breakthrough towards the sustainable resolution of the crisis. For the onus of altruism and protection of the nation’s weal lies more with it than ASUU. And the Ministry of Education is the operational face of the government. It cannot afford to share in the escapist practices by other agencies that have the statutory responsibility to act in good faith o the matter but elect to act otherwise.
Adamu Adamu as the Minister of Education therefore has his duty cut out for him to take the bull by the horns in this matter. All we are saying dear Minister, save our country’s education before it is too late. It requires at this stage, your single minded missionary zeal.
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