Education Minister, Adamu, confesses he knew nothing about Ministry when appointed

The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, has confessed that he knew nothing about the education sector when he was appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Adamu who made the confession on Thursday in Abuja during a valedictory service organised in his honour from members of staff of the ministry, said he was surprised that the President decided to make him a Minister when all he did was suggesting names for nominations into key positions during the President’s first tenure in 2015.

Adamu who ended as the longest-serving education Minister in the country, said after his appointment, he had to consult professors of education to assist him in putting a roadmap together for the ministry.

“I didn’t know anything about education except superficially. When Buhari decided to make me Minister of Education, there is somebody here sitting and looking at me; he was the first person I called. He said ‘what do you want to achieve?’ I said I want to achieve good things. And these are my ideas as a learner.

READ ALSO:Education Minister, Adamu Adamu, begs striking university workers for forgiveness

“After that meeting, professors of education were called and I told them what I wanted to achieve and let them put it in writing for me and they did. And then we had a document,” he said.

However, Adamu’s tenure as the Minister of Education became the most tumultuous in the history of the education sector as Nigeria witnessed long months of strike actions in every arm of the country’s tertiary institutions.

Unions like the unions such as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), and Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (CEASU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU), among others, went on long strikes over sundry issues like payment of salaries, withholding of allowances and salary arrears, implementation of new policies, increase in the number of new institutions among others.

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