WHEN news broke that the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, walked out in anger on leaders of the National Association of Nigerian Students on Monday, chances are you would first want to see what the students said or did to him.
In these days, when everything, including the leadership of student bodies, is devoid of altruism and the intellectual rigour that they bore in the past, one can imagine that these students may have gone beyond the limit of reasonableness in passing across whatever message they had for the minister. They probably deserved what they got but then, do we expect students to be different from the rest of society and its value system?
On the flip side is the question of what the real essence of leadership is? Suppose we assume that the blood of these young lads was so hot that they overreached in their conversation with the minister. In that case, the second question to ask yourself is whether a leader, who also has the benefit of age and experience, should miss the opportunity to teach these students, on whom nature has bestowed the charge to lead the country in years to come, a lesson or two.
This expectation is doubly valid in the case of Adamu. He is the minister of education, whose ministry is responsible for ingraining formal, and sometimes informal, education in all of Nigeria’s children.
The minister, who superintends a ministry with such a huge duty, should therefore have grabbed the unique opportunity presented by this meeting and utilised it to the hilt. If he did that, showing empathy for the time students lose to these strike actions, explaining what was being done to change the situation, and after that, registering his displeasure at the way they conducted themselves, he would have won the hearts of many Nigerians and justified his position as education minister.
However, the second and most crucial point is about the importance of leadership. Adamu’s total response, starting with his rhetoric about the need to select what deserves his attention from issues raised by the students and ending with his ultimate decision to walk out on the students, negates the essence of leadership.
Effective leadership comes with a heart to service and help, even save people from themselves. That is, a situation wherein the one blessed with the position sees his remit as an opportunity to serve. This is even more so for a public office holder, as in Adamu’s case. In places where politicians do not just mouth democracy and its ideals, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), who is Adamu’s appointor, is answerable to all Nigerian citizens regardless of age or creed. That is not to speak of his appointee. But in Nigeria, leadership is exploited to suppress the people, talk down on them and exhibit every form and shade of arrogance.
The point is that in a democracy, the people are the employers of public office holders, and selective responses to their probes or outright walking out on them, as Adamu did, is a gross violation of the citizen’s dignity. But Nigerian leaders want to enjoy the perks of office, fail to deliver on the job, and add salt to the people’s injury by insulting them.
However, like the snail who answers the call to a party for animals with horns, Adamu should be in no place to show any form of arrogance even if we agree that exuberance has become a mark of leadership in our clime. While some of Buhari’s ministers can boast of initiatives and interventions that may have added colour to the people’s lives and impacted them, it is doubtful that Adamu’s ministry of education can make such claims.
During his service, which started in 2015, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, whose current industrial action precipitated the NANS visit to the ministry of education has been on strike for a cumulative 14 out of his 78 months in office. Yet, there has been no solution to these recurring strikes, which mainly demands improved quality of infrastructure, learning and welfare of university teachers.
While many Nigerians have faulted some of ASUU’s propositions and frequent resort to strike, which is to the detriment of the students, the critical point to note here is that the dispute is usually about agreements, which the government fails to honour after signing the same. So, how much value do you even place on leaders who sign deals that they do not mean to respect repeatedly?
But Adamu’s ministry is not just about tertiary education. His ministry should give Nigeria direction in the basic and secondary components of the sectors even though they are within the purview of the states. The question to ask now is whether this minister is comfortable with the state of education in the 36 states and 774 local government areas in the country. If he is not, what can he say he has done to galvanise the states towards performing better? Doesn’t this eventually reflect on the national outlook?
Without any doubt, education is pivotal to the future of the country. It is how generations pass down a society’s ideals and philosophy and prepare its children for the future. How much is Nigeria doing on this front, with over 13 million children out of school and a huge number of those attending schools not learning anything? Would this minister say he has made an impact on Nigeria?
Now, the problem with education in Nigeria is not just about strikes, which are a huge cankerworm, it is also about curriculum, pedagogy and the training of teachers. A few states have shown the poor quality of teachers in the country. Is this ministry championing any programme that may quickly ensure that Nigeria gets its best possible talents to teach the children? Has there been any concrete definition of Nigeria’s educational needs and the objectives that those needs will serve in the future? Or are we just flying blind and trusting the heavens to prepare our children for the increasing competition that this world throws at us? The obvious answer is that little or nothing is happening on all these fronts. Our leaders feel no sense of loss or urgency at revamping the education sector and saving Nigeria from the dangers of half-baked products, insecurity and lack of capacity that the troubles in the sector portend.
And that takes us to the question that media reports suggest may have infuriated the minister. That is the question about why he sent his child to a school outside of Nigeria while the children of the poor suffer from incessant strike action. Unfortunately, Adamu missed the opportunity to tell us whether this suggestion is true or false. True or false, he should have answered this question because it is one to which he owes Nigerians an explanation, more especially so, if it is false. Clearing the air in that instance would have humbled anyone who peddles this unsubstantiated story. Even then Nigerian leaders do send their children to schools abroad. Those ones must understand that taking their child out of the waste of these endless industrial actions is immoral, although not illegal. It also may explain the disconnect and lack of motivation to do the best to engender a university system where students get functional education and can predict their tenure like those who travel abroad.
If he still desires to serve Nigeria in that capacity, Minister Adamu must realise that he owes Nigerians answers to all these questions. He must also realise that, whether he answers the question or not, history records the deeds of men and the failure of people like him to foster positive change today will remain indelible.
Twitter: @niranadedokun
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