Date Published: 07/09/09

Sack Education Minister Now, HURIWA tells F.G.

HUMAN Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, a development focused and democracy inclined Non-Governmental Organization has yesterday lamented what it calls the speedy collapse of the nation’s educational system and called for the immediate sack of the Education Minister Dr. Sam Egwu for dereliction of duty and for his failure to competently negotiate with the university teachers to prevent the frequent industrial actions.

The Rights group also stated that the current administration has portrayed itself by words and actions as being anti-intellectualism even as it called on the Government to save the public educational system from total collapse.

In a statement after its monthly meeting and endorsed by the national coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko the group urged the National Assembly in the corporate interest of Nigeria to initiate and pass a legislation for onward endorsement of President Umaru Musa Yar’adua to make it compulsory that children of all political office holders who are of school age must be enrolled in public schools up to university level. The group believes that if a law is made to compel political office holders to educate their children in public schools, then the rapidly collapsing public educational system would be saved from imminent and total collapse.

HURIWA affirmed that the fundamental cause of the decay in the public educational system in the country is linked to the fact that most political office holders have enrolled their children in the few good private schools in Nigeria and foreign nation’s including Ghana.

Blaming the current administration for actively working to undermine the development and introduction of workable infrastructures in the various public educational institutions, demanded the sack of the education minister for the deceptive measures he has adopted in the ongoing trade dispute between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

Citing the example of what it calls the extreme insensitivity of the minister of education in throwing a lavish thanksgiving party to celebrate his Silver Jubilee of his wedding even when the entire Public University System is shut down because of the ongoing strike, the Rights group demanded that Government honours the agreements with the university teachers and facilitate the immediate reopening of all Public University Institutions in the country for the sake of the educational needs of Nigerians.

HURIWA stated thus: “We are at pains to apprehend the extremely unprecedented level of insensitivity displayed by the current education minister who has by his actions demonstrated his penchant for total lack of respect for the educational rights of Nigerians especially the children of the poor. Why should the education minister go about celebrating even when the educational system is about to collapse because of the total neglect by the Federal Government? This attitude is unacceptable”.

The Rights group called on the Federal Government to honour and implement the agreement reached with the university teachers eight years ago and provide the basic infrastructural facilities necessary for learning in the various heavily neglected public educational tertiary institutions in Nigeria.