Tahir Mamman Unveiled As Nigeria’s 47th Minister Of Education

The Federal Government of Nigeria has approved and unveiled Professor Tahir Mamman as the new Minister of Education.

Mamman, the former Director-General of the Nigeria Law School from 2005 to 2013 takes over from Adamu Adamu and becomes the 47th Minister of Education in the country since 1958.

Born in 1954, the senior lawyer obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree from Ahmadu Bello University in 1983, proceeded to the NLS in 1984, and earned his Masters’ degree from the University of Warwick.

The education sector in Nigeria, particularly tertiary education has been plagued with incessant strikes actions which have led to a collapse in the academic calendars.

During the last administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, with Adamu Adamu, manning the education ministry, the tertiary education sub-sector witnessed lots of industrial actions by academic unions such as the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, and the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union, among others.

The industrial actions bordered on the implementation of agreements, poor welfare, infrastructure dearth, and shortage of academics, among others.

Another priority for the new minister is to make schools safe places to learn.

Nigeria adopted the global Safe Schools Declaration in 2019 after endorsing it in March 2015.

Based on this proclamation, the nation is required to implement programmes and policies to stop attacks on schools, respond to them, and combat assault impunity much of which was not seen during the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.

This is another area of focus for the new minister, which would entail him ensuring that students deprived of educational facilities as a result of conflict, violence or crisis are promptly given access to alternative temporary schools, in line with the National Guidelines for Accelerated Basic Education.

With the new appointments of Tahir Maman as Minister of Education and Yusuf Sununu as Minister of State for Education, the huge task of remedying the sector rests on these appointees.