Namadi Sambo, who served as vice president during the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, has denied claims by a former Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Ghali Umar Na’Abba, that when he (Na’Abba) raised the issue of the deteriorating state of education with the then vice president, he waxed religious rather than address the issue.
Featuring as a discussant at a recent event marking the eighth session of the Lagos State House of Assembly, and reacting to a lecture by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on how to resolve some of the challenges facing Nigeria, Na’Abba said when he contacted Sambo, when he was the vice president, he simply went religious, saying “may God heal the situation.”
He told the gathering that, “I told Jonathan’s vice president about the state of education in Nigeria and I thought he would do something about it. But all he told me was ‘may God heal the situation”.
But reacting through a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Alhaji Umar Sani, the former vice president said the ex-Speaker’s claim was untrue and an attempt to attract cheap publicity to himself.
“For the avoidance of doubt and to set the records straight, it is necessary to state that no such discussion took place between the former VP and the former speaker. The publication must have been motivated by desperation and a dubious desire to salvage a diminished public status,” Sani said.
He maintained that Sambo was not used to such language, particularly as someone who had played a pivotal role in uplifting the education infrastructure across the country.
“As the chairman of the National Economic Council (NEC), he ensured that there was heavy investment in the education sector. After the formulation of the National Policy on Education, the former VP set up a committee headed by the then Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), now Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to tour all tertiary institutions across the country, review the state of infrastructure and make recommendations for ending the infrastructural deficits and decay and ensuring restoration of normalcy in the sector.
“A holistic report was presented at NEC and adequate steps were taken towards effective implementation. Nigerians cannot forget that fourteen new federal universities were established as part of efforts to address the deficit in the sector while ensuring equitable distribution of federal government institutions across the federation,” he said.
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