Soon after President Tinubu’s swearing-in on May 29, 2023, it was reported that he had signed a law on student loans and related matters christened the Student Loan Act. Mr. Dele Alake (the current minister of Solid Minerals), who was then an aide of the president, said, “We’re very happy to announce to you that today the President, His Excellency Bola Tinubu, signed into law the Student Loans Bill. This is a promise made during the presidential campaign by the then-candidate, His Excellency Bola Tinubu, that he will bring the student loan issue back onto the front burner. And today, that promise he made has been kept. He has just signed that bill into law, which henceforth would allow or enable our indigent students to access federal government loans to fund their educational pursuit or career.” It was reported that in September 2023, the first batch of loan beneficiaries would emerge. Hope rose in some quarters that President Tinubu was in a hurry to fix Nigeria’s tottering education sector. Thereafter, the president made some appointments for special advisors, but none for education.
In the president’s fourth month in office, he appointed 18 special advisers and senior special assistants in September 2023, yet none were appointed for education, nor did any beneficiaries of the student loan scheme emerge in September 2023. Meanwhile, the president had dissolved the governing councils of all federal institutions of higher education with effect from June 16, 2023, when there was no minister of education, leaving then-Permanent Secretary Andrew David Adejoh to act as minister of education. Mr. Adejoh’s disregard for the president’s directives and vision for education left the education sector paralyzed. He ignored reports of impunity at some federal education institutions and permitted erosion of processes, confidence, and due process (including his memo of June 21, 2023, to the National Universities Commission conveying President Tinubu’s dissolution of the governing councils of federal universities). He ignored, refused, and neglected to report to Mr. President through the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation matters requiring the attention of governing councils, just as the president had directed. And without a special adviser on education, President Tinubu could not get feedback on the increased neglect that the sector was suffering.
Education Minister Tahir MammanPresident Tinubu’s appointment of a new permanent secretary for the federal ministry of education (Mrs. Didi Esther Walson-Jack) a few days ago has raised hope in some quarters that the minister of education, Prof. Tahir Mamman (SAN), who is the political head of the ministry, will now have a loyal and principled chief civil servant of the ministry to work with toward delivering on the president’s agenda on education. Mrs. Walson-Jack assumed work at the ministry on Tuesday, January 16. Despite this commendable change in the accounting officer of the federal Ministry of Education, President Tinubu needs to urgently appoint a special adviser on education who is knowledgeable about the education laws and acts governing federal education institutions and agencies, education policy design, existing policy weaknesses, education financing nuances, and general education management. This adviser would examine every memo from the federal Ministry of Education to the president and advise the president appropriately, as well as give regular feedback to the president on the state, dramas, and problems bedeviling the various education agencies and institutions that are presently hidden from Mr. President. I don’t believe that the president’s Renewed Hope Agenda on Education can be achieved expeditiously, effectively, and legally without such adviser. I am concerned that with barely five months until the end of the president’s first year in office, the education sector has registered no significant achievement, and confidence in the president’s promises is waning. In September 2023, President Tinubu approved increases in the salaries of staff of federal institutions of tertiary education, which were to take effect on January 1, 2023. I refer to letters, respectively, with reference numbers SWC.04/T/22 in response to a letter from the Honourable Minister of the Federal Ministry of Education referenced FME/IS/UNI/ASUU/C.II/IIIT2/90, and OAuGF/SW/C/QP/1395/VOL.1/II. Until now, there has been a deafening silence on implementation. Is President Tinubu aware of the emerging culture of uncertainty in promises made by his administration, especially in the education sector?
Who gets the president’s ears on education; who is doing the math, the analysis, the research, and measurement on Nigeria’s education sector on behalf of the president and giving him regular feedback? The president’s job is huge, and his eyes are not everywhere except through his advisers, who must have strategic access to him to drop in his ears those hideous things going on in the agencies under their purview that are obstructing his agenda and to let the president know if those memos being pushed to the president’s desk by his ministers are dumb and offer no flash of brilliance required in solving the identified problems in the sectors they oversee. The president needs an official “Amebo of Education” for him to register tangible successes in the sector. As I looked at the list of the president’s aides (special advisers and special senior assistants), I noted that President Tinubu left out one very important adviser—the Special Adviser on Education. Is this deliberate or an omission?
President Tinubu had promised that the student loan program would kick in in September last year. It did not. He then shifted the start time to January this year, and the month is almost winding up. The governing board of the proposed Education Bank is yet to be composed, and more Nigerian students are unable to pay school fees, which are being hiked even by federal colleges and universities. The governing councils of federal institutions of tertiary education remain dissolved, contrary to the establishment acts of those institutions, which require quick re-composition of the councils upon dissolution. How can the education agenda be accomplished without appropriate leadership? And where is President Tinubu’s special advisor on education to help get the president’s eyes on education and set education milestones clearly in sight? The president cannot build the economic sector while the education sector remains neglected, nor should he be persuaded that throwing money at the education sector is the silver bullet.
A nifty special adviser on education would have told the president, “Mr. President, you cannot fill a basket with water.” For instance, President Tinubu has just approved over N680 billion as an “intervention fund” for federal tertiary schools. Who would manage the funds, and how should the funds be managed to achieve the objective of providing adequate learning, teaching, and research facilities and resources at those schools? The first approach toward effective and prudent management of such resources is effective leadership selection for those schools devoid of ethnic, religious, or gender considerations and appropriate monitoring metrics and enforcement. There are reports, for instance, of vice chancellors of federal universities abusing the procurement laws, while colluding with vendors to steal public funds through dubious schemes. A special adviser to Mr. President, who would create public access to themselves, could receive documented evidence of corruption by the top leadership of federal education institutions and lay before Mr. President for appropriate corrective measures.
Recently, I went through the list of vice chancellors of federal universities on the website of the National Universities Commission (NUC) and noted a fundamental problem: the names of vice chancellors of federal universities reflected alliances with the geographical locations of those universities. Is it any wonder that Nigeria has localized and therefore blurred her university vision? Additionally, why should federal universities have vice chancellors appointed over them who are almost 70 years of age whereas the fixed term of office of vice chancellors of federal universities is 5 years? And why shouldn’t we have vice chancellors appointed much earlier than the end of the tenure of the incumbents (about a year before)? The president’s special adviser on education must be a principled and highly knowledgeable person who will never allow the president’s ears to rest from hearing, “Mr. President, these are the facts about Nigeria’s education, and these are time-tested proposals to deliver on your education agenda. If they fail, I will resign.”
President Tinubu must put education on the Renewed Hope lampstand. It is unacceptable that even the National Universities Commission (NUC), the supervisor of the entire Nigerian University System (NUS), has been without a substantive Executive Secretary since June 30, 2023, when Executive Secretary Rasheed resigned. It is time agencies and parastatals under the Federal Ministry of Education received a presidential cleansing and leadership rejuvenation for the desired results.
Patrick Yande is a freelancer.
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