A non-governmental organisation, Concerned Citizens for Educational Development, CCED, has decried some of the recent actions and policies of the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, which it claimed were impacting negatively on the education sector.

Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu

The group expressed worry that unless urgent steps were taken to reverse the trend, the nation’s education sector would be heading for implosion.

In a letter to the minister, the group’s National Convener, Mr Solomon Adodo, expressed concern that since the former Vice Chancellors of the 13 Federal universities were wrongfully sacked by the minister, several of the succeeding Vice Chancellors have unfortunately borrowed a leaf from that wrongful action and have continued to flout the relevant universities rules by sidelining the universities Governing Councils in most academic appointments.

The unfortunate implication of this, the group said, is that merit is unwittingly being replaced by mediocrity, while ineptitude and intimidation prevails, even as academic excellence and scholarship continues to take the back seat in the institutions of higher learning.

Using the case of the Federal University of Lokoja as a case in point, the group alleged that the new Vice Chancellor of the institution, being a product of the unilateral appointment by the Education Minister, has continued to make other appointments in the school, including the Deputy Vice Chancellor, without recourse to the university’s Governing Council as provided for by the Act setting up the institution.

The group also mentioned the appointment by the minister, of the new Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Oye, Ekiti State, who is a retiree professor, noting that the extant laws setting up the Federal Universities do not permit such an appointment.

The group regretted that, “The flagrant attitude of the newly appointed VCs are bolstered by the fact that they are not answerable to any other body within or outside the universities, since their appointments were friendly compensation from the Minister of Education.”