Schools Concession: The Ministry of Education as a retarded child, by Owei Lakemfa

A country’s Ministry of Education is supposed to be a place of illumination with clear ideas about the future. Nigeria has had not just super educators like Professors Wole Soyinka, Ebi Alagoa, Alvan Ikoku and Adamu Baikie, but also outstanding Education Ministers like Abudu Yusufu Eke and Babs Fafunwa.

The ongoing conflagration over the award of King’s College, KC, Lagos, to a group of its Old Boys again exposes the current leadership of the Education Ministry under Dr Tunji Maruf Alausa as retarded. Before analysing the KC issue, permit me to address this issue of incompetence in the Education Ministry.

I have made this point about the Ministry a number of times, including in its clumsy and profligate attempts to auction 33 hectares of the Federal Government College, Kano, school land.

In my May 2026 column titled ‘Minister Alausa: Little Learning Is Dangerous’, I pointed out that the Tinubu administration’s attempt to cut courses in the social sciences and arts because they allegedly do not lead to employment is illiterate and anti-intellectual. Also, in my July 6, 2026 column, ‘When Uneducated Minds Change the Education System’, I pointed out that, without consultations, the Ministry had, on September 3, 2025, ordered a major review of our national education curriculum. Then, just nine months later, the same Ministry, under the same Minister in the same Tinubu administration, announced that it was replacing the 6-3-3-4 education system with a linear 12-year one, exposing the administration’s lack of strategic and long-term thinking on education, which is the bedrock of development.

As I write, some of our universities are in turmoil, with a number of them on strike over non-payment of agreed allowances in public universities. But the administration, with Alausa as its arrowhead, is already sowing the seeds for the next round of crisis in the education sector.

The National Universities Commission, NUC Act (Cap. N81 and Section E3 of the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004), vests in the NUC the sole authority to lay minimum standards using the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards, BMAS, under which all universities must operate.

It is also empowered to accredit academic awards in the country and evaluate programmes through peer-review panels, which inspect institutional facilities, curricula and staffing. Equally, the NUC is empowered to withhold or withdraw approval of academic programmes and exercise supremacy over professional degrees.

As far as I know, the NUC has not been found wanting, nor have the laws been reviewed. But the Tinubu administration, on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, decided to establish a parallel accreditation body, baptised the ‘Ministerial Committee’.

If there are no ulterior motives, the administration ought to have told the country in what way the NUC might be failing, consulted stakeholders like the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and, if necessary, reviewed the relevant laws. But to set up a parallel body amounts to illegality.

Now, to the KC issue. The least expected of an Education Ministry is to educate and inform the public on any major issue it embarks on. But it is in this basic faculty that the Ministry is found wanting. Either because it has an inept and incapable leadership or a mischievous one imbued with a rogue mentality, it does not even engage in basic consultation with those its policies may affect.

For instance, it decided to hand over the management and administration of the 117-year-old KC to a group in the school’s Old Boys’ Association without consultations. This group of investors is empowered to impose fees, control teachers, make a profit on their so-called investment or, at least, break even. So, rather than being a social product, KC becomes a commodity that can be traded. Needless to say, the new investors, even if they pretend to grant some scholarships, would eventually price the school out of the reach of the poor, even the middle class. These Old Boys are likely to put a high price on an education and school that gave them free education.

In any case, if these men are so interested in education or making positive contributions, why can’t they establish their own school rather than seek to take over a school with a good pedigree?

The KC case raises another question. Can Old Boys administer medicine to an allegedly sick alma mater without adding poison? Given my experience with the Methodist Boys’ High School, Lagos Old Boys’ Association, MBHS OBA, the answer is yes! In the MBHS case, while the state government handed the school primarily to the mission, the Old Boys provided virtually every other facility, including teachers’ quarters, an assembly hall, a library, laboratories and water. Yet, we did not attempt to seize the school. We made, and are still making, all these contributions because the school provided us with the basic foundations that made us who we are today.

If there are no ulterior motives, why is the KC agreement shrouded in secrecy? Why were critical stakeholders, such as the students who will bear the brunt, their parents and guardians who will be forced to pay, the teachers whose careers as public servants may be jeopardised, and the unions and professional associations whose members will be affected, not consulted? Why were their inputs not sought? If the government claims it wants the best for the school and concession is the best option, why not make it open? Why must the school be handed to a set of people who may not have the professional competence to run it?

This move is nothing but racketeering. The prime land of the school is also an attraction. But I must admit that this prodigal trajectory did not start with the Tinubu administration. In 2006, the Obasanjo administration, with Dr Oby Ezekwesili as Education Minister, embarked on this same path. It wanted to hand over the Federal Government Colleges to private administrators and managers. There are, however, some remarkable differences between the two administrations. While Obasanjo, despite his military background, engaged in wide consultations, Tinubu, in spite of his pro-democracy credentials, did not engage in consultations. He simply decided to impose his will. Again, while Obasanjo backed away, Tinubu, as he did when he announced the immediate removal of the oil subsidy, simply handed the KC over. The pushback we are witnessing is not his re-reading of the situation, but the resistance he is facing from stakeholders.

Generally, education is not a commercial commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace. Rather, it is a social vehicle to develop society. So, in educating our citizens, we are not doing them a favour; we are doing ourselves a favour. My advice is that the Tinubu administration should concentrate on mass education, especially of the 20 million out-of-school children. I come in peace.

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