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Opinions
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Written by BY Alphonsus Eseleme
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The nation’s education sector was already reeling from the effects of the ASUU strike when another front was opened by a rather peculiar interest group, not usually associated with the sector. The palaver was sparked by UBEC’s advertisement inviting pre-qualification bid from contractors for supply of school furniture, which prompted protests from Intermarkets, a company that had executed a similar contract for UBEC in 2005, demanding exclusive rights to the supply contract advertised by UBEC. From there commenced a flurry of events, including litigation and eventually, an EFCC swoop which took in some UBEC executives as well as the company boss. In the aftermath, it became public knowledge that there were some sharp practices and contraventions of due process in the award of the 2005 contract for the supply of plastic chairs and tables for some secondary schools. As the investigations progressed, a media campaign was unleashed by the peculiar interest group, with the purpose of discrediting UBEC by beclouding the main issues involved.
Our concern here is not the on-going investigations and other legal processes, but the targeting of a strategic national educational institution such as UBEC and its board and management for media bashing over an issue that is not germane to its mandate. UBEC has always been in the news as a major player in the Federal Government’s strategic intervention in support of the delivery of qualitative basic education throughout the country. In recent times, the Commission has focused on monitoring and evaluation of the delivery chain through state and local government education boards and departments, and evolving effective measures to enhance prudence and quality assurance mechanisms, for the desired impact on basic education in the country. In its latest outing, a Good Performance Award initiative was revived to encourage greater performance of state governments in delivery of qualitative basic education, with commendable outcomes. Obviously, all these
proactive measures are in line with the policies enunciated and enforced by the Yaradua Administration, especially the emphasis on prudent management of budgeted funds, due process and provision of qualitative education.
It can therefore be clearly understood that a recourse to deliberate campaigns of calumny targeting UBEC and its executives by interests caught in the web of past discrepancies and indiscretions, is not only a ploy to becloud the reality of such misdeeds, but worse still, an unacceptable attempt to distract UBEC from its mission, even at the risk of derailing the recent initiatives that are already having the desired impact on the basic education sector that is so crucial as a foundation for higher levels of education. The orchestrated media campaigns have been targeting the professional and managerial competence of UBEC’s executives, especially its Executive Secretary, Dr Ahmed Modibbo Mohammed, whose unblemished career and enviable track record as a silent but highly committed and result-oriented professional is common knowledge in the nation’s education sector. From the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where he began as a graduate assistant in the
History Department in 1977, earning merited progression to Senior Lecturer by 1998, and occupying positions of Head of Department of History (1991-1997) as well as Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (1995-1997), he had proved his mettle as a historian, academician and educationist.
Dr Modibbo was a member of JAMB’s admission committee, WAEC’s Nigeria National Committee and Administrative and Finance Committee before being recognized with appointment as a member of the Education Sub-Committee, President-Elect Policy Advisory Committee in April 1999 and Ministerial Committee on Review and Drafting White Paper on Visitation Panel Reports on Federal Universities in October 1999. His appointment as Chief Executive of the National Teachers’ Institute(NTI) in 2000 turned around the fortunes of the Institute and gave it a new lease on life as the foremost distance learning teacher education institution in Nigeria, the acclaim of which is still reverberating at the NTI. His appointment as UBEC Executive Secretary was a vindication of his reputation for focus and performance, that is already manifest. However, none of this impressed the hired propagandists who are more interested in fabricating tales about “extended tenures” and
maliciously redefining “seasoned educationist”, in a frantic bid to pull him down in retaliation for disrupting the peculiar business of their sponsors.
Perhaps now we can understand what EFCC Chairperson Farida Waziri meant by stating recently that “when you fight corruption, corruption fights back”, because the wisdom and impact of policies and strategies implemented by UBEC under Dr Ahmed Modibbo Mohammed in furtherance of its founding objectives and need for refocusing to address observed challenges, have proved appropriate and effective and earned the endorsement of education authorities. Moreover, the media onslaught has not been able to find fault with issues pertaining to policies or implementation strategies adopted by UBEC hence the adoption of contrived criticism of qualifications and tenures. This episode shows how ruthless disgruntled vested interests can be in reacting to threats to their peculiar business interests. They have no qualms about deliberately casting aspersions on implementers of policies considered favorable to the nation’s quest for development and even disrupting the
status-quo, if that will restore their business interests.
This is not to say that there is no room for constructive criticism from competent quarters, as even the UBEC benefitted a lot from the contributions of various specialists and other valuable resource persons in basic education through several retreats and workshops organized precisely to augment in-house capacities and evolve innovative and effective strategies to address challenges, for the success of its policies and programmes. Critical areas like education should not be reduced to mere business opportunities to be exploited at the expense of the very policies and programmes that necessitate the involvement of purely commercial enterprises like contractors. The vision and mission of UBEC focusing on provision of qualitative basic education for the leaders of tomorrow should therefore be spared the wheeling and dealing and media propaganda that tends to distract attention from the crucial assignments outlined for implementation. National interest must
not be subordinated to pecuniary peculiarities of private interests in the conduct of government affairs, especially in the education sector.
ALPHONSUS ESELEME is a public affairs analyst in Onitsha
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