Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has described as a stone age policy, the latest decision by the Federal Government to stop students under the age of 18 from seeking university admissions.
Atiku said the Bola Tinubu-led government is trampling on the constitution which gives sub-national governments concurrent powers to legislate on varsity admissions.
Calling it another absurdity coming from the government, the presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2023 election said the latest policy is another “disincentive to scholarship.”
Atiku went further, “The policy runs foul of the notion of delineation of responsibilities in a federal system of government such as we are pratising, and gives a graphic impression of how the Tinubu government behaves like a lost sailor on a high sea.
“Otherwise, how is such anti-scholarship regulation the next logical step in the myriad of issues besetting our educational system?”
Explaining how the policy runs foul of the constitution, Atiku said the Nigerian constitution puts education in the concurrent list of schedules, in which the sub-national government enjoys more roles above the federal government.
“Therefore, it is extra-constitutional for the federal government to legislate on education in a manner similar to a decree. The best global standard for such regulation is to allow the sub-national governments to make respective laws or rules on education.
It is discouraging that even while announcing this obnoxious policy, the government inadvertently said it had no plan to cater for specially gifted pupils.
“That statement is an embarrassment to the body of intellectuals in the country because it portrays Nigeria as a country where gifted students are not appreciated.”
Atiku said the irony here is that should the federal government play any role in education, “it is to set up mechanisms that will identify and grant scholarships to gifted students not minding their ages before applying for admission into tertiary institutions”
He called on Nigerians to condemn the policy.
Atiku is the founder of the American University of Nigeria, Yola, Adamawa state.
