Nigeria’s outgoing minister of Education Minister, Mallam Adamu Adamu has revealed that he was very inexperienced about the workings of the education sector before President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him in 2015.
Adamu, who is the longest-serving minister revealed this at a valedictory session with officials and heads of parastatals of the Ministry on Thursday.
He, however, was credited 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.
‘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,’ Adamu said.
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‘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 minister appreciated the President who found him worthy and trusted him with such a responsibility, ‘even when I was apparently not ready and unprepared for such task’.
He said, ‘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.’
Africa Today News, New York reports that the Buhari administration will officially hand over power to the incoming administration on Tuesday.