Mallam Adamu Adamu, Nigeria’s Minister of Education, recalled on Thursday that he was a novice when President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him to serve in the education sector in 2015.
Earlier today, during a valedictory session with Ministry officials and heads of parastatals, the Minister stated that because he was inexperienced, he reached out to key people to assist him in their various capacities.
WITHIN NIGERIA understands that Adamu received credits for appointing some professors of education and other ‘good hands’ with the help of the officials of the Federal Ministry of Education that helped him record some success in his tenure.
I didn’t know anything about the education sector when I was appointed Minister except superficially. But when Buhari decided to make me Minister of Education, I called some people to assist me to work on a policy document on education because I was a novice in the sector. I shared my idea with them, and they assisted me greatly, and I remain grateful to them for these years, the Education Minister said.
Adamu hailed President Buhari who thought it good and found him worthy of such responsibility despite that he “Was apparently not ready and unprepared for such task”.
The Minister added:
I was busy making recommendations and suggestions to the President on who to appoint into his cabinet in 2015. All of a sudden, he announced my name to my surprise and that was it. We worked together till 2019.
In 2019, I approached the President and suggested that he reshuffle his cabinet because, in the eyes of many, it was unusual in our society for a President to work with the same Ministers for four years. Buhari had graciously allowed his Ministers to stay in office for four years. Ordinarily, Ministers stay in office for two years before they are reshuffled.
But I know him very well and I knew it will be difficult for him to do that. But I decided to make it easy for him by promising to bring people that would do the job better for me and others who served as Ministers in the first tenure.”
I promised him that I will give him names of competent people from at least, 19 northern states. So, I suggested to him to drop all the Ministers that worked with him in the first tenure including me, but I knew it would be difficult for him. But to confirm that I can do the job, I gave him a name from Bauchi state whom I had expected him to replace me within the cabinet. That was how Maryam Katagun became Minister of the Federal Republic.
Discussion about this post