by Emma Okocha

In the circumstances, the infantile Ministers of Education from the day, they approved the banning of the study of History in our schools, shoved our country away from the road of progress to darkness. The next Minister of Education we strongly recommend should be a History teacher.

Until the last cabinet shake up, she was the Minister of Education. Like the nation’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, she was not in office to respect the sartorial codes of her public office. As a petite femme, she was not attracted to the French “des Fashions avart garde,’’ champagne collections. Whatever, her severe conservative balcony composure was inspired by her religious belief and exclusive social environment.

In spite of her trendy limitations, Professor Ruqayyatu Rufai as the Minister of Education was a super Federal actor who on many occasions represented the Commander-in-Chief, lavishing support for many of the president’s programmes. A very significant member of the inner caucus that included Dizeani Madueke (Minister), Ngozi Iweala, [de facto Prime Minister of Petroleum Resources) Stella Oduah, (embattled Aviation Minister) she was fast warming up and winning the President’s confidence. Indeed, just some few weeks to her sack, and without any prepared blueprints, she announced the approval of new Federal universities, most of which were located in the North West and one in Otueke in Bayelsa state. Unfortunately, Asaba was not considered once again. That Nigerian first Capital before the imperial amalgamation continues as the only Capital of a Federal State in the world, without a University or Polytechnic.

Whatever was her hold on the presidency, she was shaken when the university teachers swung the axe and swooped down the streets. Ruffled, the minister could not imagine the audacity of her immediate constituency. Her incompetence was exposed as she could not predict the reach of the lecturers, nor could she manage the ASUU strike against her principal. As we write, the contention is as furious as the strike is unending. Granted that Nigeria’s Ministers of Education usually are burnt by the fire, stoked by protesting students and their teachers, the sack of Professor Rufai had other contributing factors and issues.

Indeed, Prof. Rufai, Osuji, Dr. Okojie, Dr. Nwachukwu and most of the country’s past Education ministers should be invited to national Television to face the nation. Before the camera, these Ministers would be asked to explain why History as a philosophical subject was deleted from the primary and secondary schools curricula of the Nigeria’s education system.

These revelations may sound unreal for some of the upcoming new generation, probably the last to read and study the glorious History of our people. Those ministers in responding to the people should read the works of Cicero, the Roman philosopher and writer and the same time go with the postulations of Professor, E.H. Cart.

Cart, in explaining the essence of man, maintained that “as a rational being, he develops his potentials by accumulating the experiences of the past generations. The transmissions of acquired characteristics is the very foundations of progress. History, therefore, is a record of progress and also a progressive science. A society which has ceased to concern itself with its progress in the past will quickly lose belief in its capacity for progress in the future.

In the circumstances, the infantile Ministers of Education from the day, they approved the banning of the study of History in our schools, shoved our country away from the road of progress to darkness. The next Minister of Education we strongly recommend should be a History teacher.

The sack of the Housing Minister, Ama Pepple was salutary despite the frustrated vituperations of the opposition, earning the president immediate goodwill from the people.

Pepple, who had recently retired as a Permanent  Secretary had given and taken her best after these years in the civil service. At these evening times of her life, she should have returned to the beautiful shores of Opobo kingdom to rest her tired bones. But this is a country where the old is appointed to the choice Ministries and moved from the critical Ports Authority to the Power and Oil sector Boards. Most of the time, these septuagenarians nimble their way, snore over board meetings and accumulate retirement benefits from their past appointments while awarding more contracts to themselves and cronies, as Chairmen and Ministers of their present Ministries and Boards.

After years of trotting about, the Housing Ministry under Ama Pepple has no Hovel Estate to show for its huge budget allocations. Unlike workers in the desert oil nations of Algeria, Libya and Iraq; where new condominiums stretch into the desert every quarter, the workers in Nigeria have no place to rest their tired heads.

If the president must go back to Rivers State for a new Minister of Housing, then let him stretch out and give it to Ann-kio Briggs. Madame Briggs may not be found on the same stage with those select few always, dancing to the Kokoma of Jonathan’s praise songs. Briggs, like another memorable Dr. Green of the same state, belongs to the school of those rare Nigerian public servants, who approached their responsibilities with commitment and left unprecedented legacies on their departure from office.

Dr. Green was the most hardworking Commissioner of Health from Rivers State and in many ways could be compared to the national icon, Dr. Ransome Kuti.

As the Commissioner of Health, he frugally organized his allocations and was able to offer every Rivers eye patient, free eye glasses.

Dr. Green, riding the crest and having inspired every public servant in our region, was surprisingly queried by his military governor who wanted some of the budget passed to him. A courageous soul, Dr. Green shook the whole South- South Bureaucracy, when instead of discontinuing his very popular “Free Glasses Project’’  tendered his resignation.

The president in looking the direction of Ann-Kio Briggs and her ilk would for the first time,  bring on board women who may not be active PDP spearheads; but women who by their antecedents, education and commitment to the people, work to add value and respect to the Jonathan presidency and times.

 

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.