The essay, ‘Towards the Federal Republic of Illiteracy’ written by Owei Lakemfa in the Vanguard Newspaper of 14th November, 2022, was a justified commentary on the confessional statement made by Mallam Adamu Adamu, the Federal Minister of Education in an address read at the 66th National Council on Education (NCE) in Abuja. In the address, Mallam Adamu Adamu said,
“I came to office as Minister of Education seven years ago to tackle the myriad of issues confronting the education system, particularly the issue of out-of-school children. But unfortunately, I failed to achieve all these expectations. For seven years, I was unable to tackle the issue of out-of-school children and several other challenges in the education sector.”
Adamu Adamu
Understandably, though Owei Lakemfa wrote the essay in anger and with moral outrage too but still he managed to elucidate his disappointment at the below par performance of the Minister of Education. This was more so because Adamu Adamu, like Owei Lakemfa used to be a sociopolitical analyst and a regular newspaper columnists. Those who have read Adamu Adamu’s incisive 2013 essay titled ‘Why ASUU Is Always On Strike’ find it very difficult to comprehend his present state of extreme antipathy towards the ongoing ASUU crisis and to many other retrogressive decisions he has taken since he was appointed as Minister of Education.
However, the last sentence of Mr Owei Lakemfa’s essay captured my interest. It says,
“We need to urgently check the increasing number of out-of-school children, otherwise Nigeria would be marching towards a Federal Republic of Illiteracy“
Owei Lakemfa
Straight away, we can easily ascertain that the advice of Mr Owei Lakemfa has come out too late to impact any positive change on the abject state of education in Nigeria. This is because Nigeria has already and unfortunately marched blindly into the Fulani ‘Republic’ of ‘Almajirai’ — Illiterate Beggars
At this historical moment in Nigeria, the awakened ‘Nigerians’ are still in a state of shock and bewilderment. They couldn’t help but to ask, When will our illustrious columnists and the so-called Elites of Nigeria own up to their obvious civic irresponsibility and intellectual failures? At least, Mr Adamu Adamu, either with honest or dishonest intentions, has put his hands up to claim his rightful dishonourable position as the most infamous and the longest serving Minister of Education in office, who has failed spectacularly to accomplish the duties attached to his office and to those he voluntarily assigned to himself.
The Battles on the Institutions of Governance in Nigeria
However, what should baffle a nonpartisan observer of the Nigeria State is the gross inability of the privileged class in Nigeria to perceive, to understand and ‘overstand’, and to comprehend fully and unmistakably the nature of the comprehensive battles that are being waged on the various institutions of governance — education, economy, security, law and order, justice, welfare, industry, technology, energy, media, communication, culture, peace, harmony, etc. — in Nigeria.
In short, why are the elites of Nigeria still feigning ignorance about the obvious raging wars that are being fought to destabilise the governments of Nigeria and to fracture the harmonious relationships between people, communities and the ethnic nations of Nigeria since 2015?
Shockingly, the Nigerian writers, columnists, social analysts and other eggheads in the country have continued to undertake a sectoral, piecemeal and fire-brigade-type approach as they seem to focus a lacklustre and abysmal attention on the various man-made socioeconomic and political issues that are bedevilling Nigeria.
Where a holistic observation is called for and an in-depth appraisal of the situation is required to unravel the hidden mysteries behind the travails of Nigeria, what we get from our elites are mere superficial, wishy-washy tales full of sound and fury like those told by idiots (with apologies to Shakespeare). But these shallow analytical tales, true to expectations, are signifying nothing.
In this particular essay, Mr Owei Lakemfa has failed to go deep enough to unravel the tales-by-midnight told by Mr ‘Smart Alec’ Adamu Adamu. How could Mr Lakemfa have failed to connect the dots while looking at the tenure of the minister of education who has singlehandedly fought a dogged battle, and openly too, to collapse and to destroy the whole institution of education in Nigeria from the primary to the tertiary level? Is it not under the Adamu Adamu’s tenure that all the federal-controlled universities across the country were shut down for almost eight months because of the ASUU’s industrial strike? And, is it not Adamu Adamu that walked out of a meeting with the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) who were seeking his ministerial intervention to the closure of the Federal Universities in Nigeria?
As Owei Lakemfa noted, in spite of the non-performance of the dishonourable minister, under whom the number of out-of-school children “according to the United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF swelled from 10.1 million in 2021 to 18.5 million this year”. Yet, the gigantic budgetary funds allocated for education were arduously and ingenuously spent. Shouldn’t our investigative journalists be on Mr Adamu Adamu’s tail to explain to the hapless ‘citizens’ of the country what he spent the allocation on?
Unfortunately and to the collective shame of us all, ‘Nigerians’ are yet to accept that the acts of Mr Adamu Adamu as the godforsaken Minister of Education are not due to mere errors of omission but that all his actions as a minister were well planned and carefully executed towards a malevolent political purpose. Indeed, these acts can be construed as political machinations that were drawn up from the rule book of a Machiavellian Prince.
For seven agonising years, it is surprising that most ‘Nigerians’ are yet to acknowledge the premeditated treasonable activities of most of the serving ministers of the present Fulani Government of Nigeria. Our so-called investigative journalists and erudite researchers have been unable to investigate and to connect the dots of the individual acts of deliberate political and economic sabotages from each of the Ministers appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Obviously, it is as if ‘Nigerians’ are behaving like a people under hypnosis and who have carelessly chosen to take a nap while the make-believe ‘One-Nigeria’ country is being burnt to ashes. ‘Nigerians’ could not even ask of themselves the simplest of all the questions staring at them in the face, How is it possible that the whole institutions of governance in Nigeria have suddenly collapsed like domino cards in a short space of 90 months?
Dear friends, there is no mystery here. Without mincing words, I am suggesting that the chaos and upheavals that are going on in Nigeria are the deliberate and carefully planned acts of sabotage carried out by those with malevolent intentions and demonic ambitions to destabilise the existing — though ill-fitted —social, economic and political structures of Nigeria; to collapse the machinery of the Nigeria State; and to establish a Fulani Feudal Caliphate in its place.
We can continue to slumber on, continue to deceive ourselves, continue to present our half-baked analysis and continue to regurgitate our irrelevant conclusions as the burning fire of Nigeria continues to be stoked up till the country finally turned into rubble.
Alternatively, the civic elites, writers, columnists and the intellectuals blessed with the fire of truth in their bellies and with souls brimming with words of wisdom can help the indigenous people of Nigeria to, first and foremost, WAKE UP from their induced political hypnosis; rise up from their careless spiritual slumber; seek healing from their ailments of spiritual blindness, dumbness, deafness, and anosmia that have prevented them from perceiving and smelling the burning odour of the Nigeria House of Deceit; summon the wisdom, courage and the power to douse the various raging existential fires that are currently burning down Nigeria; and most importantly, nudge the indigenous people of Nigeria toward making the right kind of political decisions of either to rebuild the moribund and dilapidated Nigeria House or to relocate and establish their different new and vibrant independent ethnic nations.
Nigerians need to tell each other the truth that this is the eleventh hour to the Doomsday of Nigeria as a country. The critical question is, Is it still possible to salvage this unfortunate country?
In The Spirit of Truth
SAM ABBD ISRAEL
ITSOT 