By Emman Ovuakporie & Johnbosco Agbakwuru

ABUJA—MORE facts emerged, yesterday, concerning the secrecy surrounding the one-year extension of service of Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Mrs Jemila Shuara.

Vanguard reliably gathered that in a bid to save face, Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, in a letter dated March 7, wrote the House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education, indicating that Shuara was no longer the Permanent Secretary and could not, for this reason, appear before it to defend how President Muhammadu Buhari extended her tenure of office after it expired in February 2016.

But the contentious issue is the fact that the committee members had insisted during the defence of the ministry’s 2017 budget that Shuara should produce the letter signed by Buhari extending her tenure by one year.

In the letter personally signed by the Minister of Education, entitled: Re: Invitation To A Meeting, he explained: “I wish to inform you that his Excellency, Mr President has already, in principle, approved the extension of the tenure of Dr Jemila Shaura for a period of one year with effect from February 17, 2017.

“I have duly informed the Chief of Staff to the President on this development, and though I have not seen his directive to the Head of Service but he has shown me her response, which in summary, is to say that the Head of Service is yet to convey approval to the officer concerned.

“Consequently, Dr Shaura, in the interim, has handed over the functions of the office until formal conveyance.
“In the circumstance, therefore, your letter requesting her to appear primarily to explain her functioning as permanent secretary without due authorisation has been noted.

“However, since she has stopped carrying out the functions of the post, it seems to me that as of now, is a private citizen, who no longer has the title, need or indeed the locus standi to appear before your committee.

“Kindly note that this letter has been copied to the Presidency and HCSF to keep them abreast of developments.”
Vanguard further gathered that in another letter dated same March 7 and signed by the Director of Procurement, Mr Hussaini Adamu, the ministry had written a letter to the Deputy Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education, explaining why Dr Shuara could not appear before the committee because she was away.

The letter read: “ I will like to inform you that the Permanent Secretary is away and the Director of Procurements, Dr Hussaini Adamu, is overseeing the affairs of the Federal Ministry of Education.’’

This development, however, is a sharp contrast to what the minister told the committee last Thursday, when he appeared, that he sent Jemila on an assignment and jokingly added: “I’m here to represent the permanent secretary.”

A source close to the committee, who preferred not to be mentioned, told Vanguard that “all we are saying is that the ministry should provide evidence of a letter extending the tenure of Shuara and the case is as good as forgotten.

“But if by Thursday this week there’s no evidence of such a letter, then we are starting afresh from where we stopped.”
Recall that the committee had directed the Permanent Secretary two weeks ago to provide the letter granting an extra tenure of one year after her service year expired last year February 24.

During a budget defence on February 22, Shu’ara had claimed that the Presidency granted her an extra year after her tenure of office expired.
She failed to show up last Tuesday with the approval letter and the committee had to reschedule another meeting for last Thursday which she also failed to show up.

The HoS, Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita, who appeared last Thursday to explain properly to the committee, said her mandate did not include bringing the letter but promised members she would produce it this Thursday in another scheduled meeting with committee.