By Vera Chinonso Aliyu, YeyeNews.com, November 30, 2021
With the news that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is threatening to embark on yet another round of industrial action over the failure of the government to implement the memorandum of action (MoA) signed with them, Nigerians are once again asking questions about the whereabouts of the missing Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu.
Stakeholders in the Nigerian educational sector have continued to express concern over the disappearance of Malam Adamu Adamu since his reappointment as the Minister of Education in 2019. “We have heard officials of the Ministry of Education insist that the minister is at work, but his complete absence in all the crucial meetings with the various university unions has made that assertion impossible to believe. His mysterious absence can be the only explanation for no actions being taken on the pressing issues in our universities”, a student activist in Ibadan told YeyeNews.com.
An official of ASUU who did not want his name in print told YeyeNews.com reporter that they are all surprised by the minister’s complete absence, wondering if this is the same Adamu Adamu that stringently wrote in defense of the demands of the university workers during the Jonathan presidency. “What is even more intriguing is the minister’s total silence when the junior minister, Chukwuemaka Nwajiuba, made the outlandish statement that ‘lecturers should resign and go into farming if they don’t like the remuneration’ in response to a question from a TV show host. Malam Adamu Adamu has completely abandoned the crucial matters under his office to impostors like Nwajiuba and Ngige to resolve. Every Nigerian knows that those two cannot even resolve a feud between siblings”, the ASUU official argued.
Since it now seems the minister has disappeared, critical stakeholders in the education sector have taken it upon themselves to make an appeal to well meaning Nigerians to come forward with any information concerning the minister’s whereabouts. “We have declared him missing. Please anybody with useful information about his whereabouts should contact the nearest university”, a professor in University of Benin declared.
