“Get out!” Journalists thrown off public event by Nigeria’s education minister
Nigerian journalists covering the education sector were given the shock of their lives on Tuesday.
They were at the venue of the inauguration of committee on recruitment of 500,000 teachers.
Minister of State for Education, Anthony Anwukah, surprised them by inaugurating the committee without naming its chairman, secretary and members. He also, according to state-run NAN, didn’t say when the committee would swing into action.
Who names a ghost committee for crying out loud? The journalists were probably pondering that puzzle when they directly asked the minister to name the people in this committee.
“I have not requested for questions; I said the press should leave; please leave,” Anwukah is reported to have said.
Some of the journalists, infuriated, obliged and threatened to not attend any other event organised by the education ministry.
President Buhari recent said he would begin a massive recruitment of teachers to fill Nigeria’s education void.
At least 500,000 graduate teachers will be employed, Buhari said.
But he made no reference to inaugurating a “ghost” education committee. Neither did he say he would be ant-media. As a matter of fact, information and culture minister Lai Mohammed has been meeting with journalists upandan saying things like “we are forever friends.”.
