Ex-Minister Fault GEJ’s Achievement on 14 New Universities

 

                   Former Minister of Youths, Mallam Mobolaji Abdullahi ‎has expressed dissatisfaction on the consideration of the 14 new universities as an achievement by President Goodluck Jonathan.
Abdullahi said tackling rot in the education sector should be addressed holistically from the basics rather than the university level.
                 He said if 70 per cent of students who wrote National Examination Council (NECO) and West African Examination Council (WAEC) performed woefully, there was need to refocus the education sector.
                 The former Minister of Sport emphasised that about nine of the 14 universities were in the northern part of the country, yet 90 per cent of the students cannot read and write.

He spoke during a lecture organised by Core Value Committee of the Northern Reawakening Forum (NRF) yesterday in Abuja. The lecture was titled ‘The Challenges of Youth Development in Northern Nigeria’.
Abdullahi said the illiteracy rate was increasing while unemployment has become a serious threat to the nation due to poor education.
‎He decried lack of national qualification standards that enables Nigerians to export their skills.
According to the former Minister, the nation currently spends about 6 per cent of its budget on education.

He urged the government to do a massive investment in the quality of teachers and teaching processes.

He stressed the need to focus on education in order to ‎address unemployment and inequality in the system.
“You cannot tackle the challenges of youth in the northern Nigeria without redefining education. You cannot also develop higher education without visiting the basic education.
“If we don’t do something about youth unemployment in the north, I tell you Boko Haram is the least thing we have experienced. It’s a time bomb waiting to explode,” he said.
He also urged northern leaders to make use of the opportunity now that it’s appears that the country is winning the war against the sect to “begin to think of a special development programme that targets the North. This would not be an act of charity, but enlightened self-interest. If we not give people something to live for, someone would always give them something to die for.”
He added; “now that the rest of the world is willing to assist us in combating this act of terrorism, we must include a purposely targeted development intervention as part of the package.”
In his remarks, Chairman of the committee, Alh. Uba Seidu Malami said voters should make sure public officers are of the knowledge that they can be voted out of power if they perform below expectation.
He called for true democracy to solve the lingering problems in the country.