THE academic community and major stakeholders of education have received the news of the senate's rejection of the nomination of Dr. Babalola Borishade, the immediate past minister of education, as a minister in the current political dispensation with a big sigh of relief.

Borishade's rejection by the upper chamber of the National Assembly is indeed seen as the first major action that the current senate has taken in towing the line of the wishes and aspirations of the masses as dictated by the tenets of democracy. And this singular decision has etched the senate in the mind of the people as a collection of distinguished people whose watchword is probity and accountability.

So enthralled by the non-confirmation of Borishade's nomination was the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) that its National President, Dr Oladipo Fasina paid a commendation visit to the senate's president, Adolphus Wabara, in Abuja last Thursday, thanking him and the entire senate for rejecting Dr. Borishade's nomination.

Speaking exclusively to Education Vanguard in Lagos during the week, the University of Lagos ASUU chairman, Dr Yomi Akinyeye, who lectures in history department, says the education ministry was in shambles for most of Borishade's tenure. Hear him: " The non-confirmation of Dr Borishade as a minister by the senate is a commendable development because he has been tested and found grossly incompetent to handle any ministerial responsibility. He lacked the courage to proffer meaningful advice that was required of him or even to guide the president honestly, and the result has been crisis upon crisis. Apart from that he did not demonstrate the quality of character and integrity required for such an exalted position. Senate, after evaluating all the allegations against him, acted rightly by rejecting his nomination and by so doing, senate has sent a signal of hope that one day there will come a day of reckoning for people in high places who misuse their positions of authority." Borishade's day of reckoning had indeed come too early, probably the first government official in the history of the country to have faced a probe panel, investigating into his activities while in office barely a month after leaving office.

Just as federal university communities are celebrating over Borishade's dropping, federal polytechnics across the country are also in a festive mood. The chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Yabatech, Mr Dave Ohiorhenuan says the senate's decision is a welcome development. Hear him: 'It is high time that we start assessing people's performance in whatever office that they hold because I don't With all these controversial policies executed by Borishade, a deluge of petitions was already waiting for him before the upper chamber of the National Assembly who wields the power of confirming ministerial nominees. And during the question and answer session, Borishade was confronted with further accusations such as awarding a whooping sum of N400 million UBE classrooms contract to a company he allegedly owns, Boris Nigeria Limited, although he has denied ever owning the company. He was also accused of calling himself a professor when he is not one as well as not replying all the letters sent to him by the senate and the House of Representatives while in office. Taken together all these allegations and petitions against him the Senate therefore came to the conclusion that he is not fit to be a minister once more by refusing to endorse his nomination.

As the rejection of Borshade's nomination came as relief to many Nigerians, a daunting task is definitely before the new minister of education, Professor Fabian Osuji whom both the academics and other stakeholders of education expect to bring about a turnaround in the beleaguered education sector.

believe we ever had much crisis as we had during the tenure of Borishade. This is a man who came from the academic, and yet while in office, he behaved as if he did not even know what was happening in the sector."

Students were also unanimous in castigating the former minister for presiding over a ministry that forced them out of school for the better part of his four - year tenure. The ASUU strike of 2001 and its six month strike in 2003 are still fresh in the minds of university students. The failure of Borishade to use his office to settle the face-off between ASUU and the Federal Government is, to the students, indicative of his incompetence to handle any ministry in the country.

Oyekunmi Fagun, a part four philosophy student at the University of Lagos says of Borishade. "There were too many strikes during his tenure. This is July, and we just started the 2002/2003 academic session. The implication is that there is no way we can finish the academic session this year. This is a session that ought to have started in September 2002. It is during his tenure that Unilag's academic calender got disrupted. This is a university that had stablilised its academic calender before Borishade came. He could not resolve the disagreement between ASUU and government. Neither was he able to take the vexed issue of autonomy to a logical conclusion before the National Assembly was dissolved last year. I was very happy that the senate did not approve his nomination."

Johnson Obor, a part III English student at Unilag also sees Borishade's tenure as highly unproductive. "Students are encouraged in other climes. There was no encouragement of any sort for both students and lecturers during Borishade's time. He was not diplomatic in handling his job. He was only interested in being in the good book of President Olusegun Obasanjo. Everybody knows that he did not perform. Even market women will testify to this because they know we were always at home due to strikes while Borishade was in the saddle."

The disenchantment of polytechnic students with Dr Borishade is the alleged neglection of the polytechnic sector by the federal government during Borishade's tenure and his failure to act on their agitation for going straight for master's degree programmes after their HND.

An ND II student of Fine Art at Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Chris Omeruo says much of this policy somersault for polytechnics."Borishade, as the minister of education completely sidelined the polytechnic sector. Polytechnics are practical-oriented institutions and yet there was no provision for buying tools and equipment which students need to work with daily. The former minister of education unilaterally cancelled the West African Polytechnics Games (WAPG) which was supposed to have been held at Yabatech last year. He wouldn't have cancelled it if it was a competition for universities. Nothing came out too of the demand for academic progression of HND holders as well as the need to empower some federal polytechnics to be able to award degrees to students. It is a big relief to me that Borishade is not coming back as a minister."

Members of ASUP have held Dr Borishade responsible for the failure of government to implement fully the agreement they reached with government in September 2001, a development which pushed them into embarking on a strike action that lasted from November 2001 to April 2002, (six months). Some of the yet to be implemented ASUP's agreement include: the academic progression of polytechnics graduates, provision of stabilisation funds for polytechnics, harmonisatin of allowances of polytechnics teachers with their university counterparts, the elevation of chief lecturers to HATISS 15, principallecturer to HATISS 14 and senior lecturer to HATISS 13 and the replacement of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) with the National Commission for Polytechnics (NCP). "The closest thing which the federal government has done on the agitation for the scrapping of the NBTE is to want to transfer the board and management of NBTE into NCP and we don't want that because NBTE's management had become power drunk and their excesses are too much. For instance the management of NBTE would not release to polytechnics all the subvention given to them by the federal government. The ministry of education under Borishade, inspite of our complaints, went ahead to inaugurate a committee that will oversee the conversion of the board and management of NBTE into NCP without ASUP's representation," Ohiorhenuan told Education Vanguard during the week.

At the vanguard of the strident criticism of the immediate past minister of education is however the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) who had picked up the gauntlet against him following the repudiation of the June 2001 agreement with government signed after the university teachers embarked on an industrial action. Some of the agreements include: the allocation of minimum of 26 per cent annual budget to education, provision of stabilisation shortfalls in budgetary allocation, release of capital fund, education tax fund, assistance to state universities, the granting of autonomy based on the laws of universities and the non victimization of any one for his or role in the ASUU strike of 2001.

The abrogation of these agreements by government led to the six month strike by ASUU which lasted from December 2002 to June 2003. Speaking on the role of Dr Borishade in the repudiation of the agreement, Yomi Akinyeye says: "Government went ahead to start violating the agreement and the minister acquiesced in this bad behaviour of government rather than honestly advising government that it is improper to do so. On the contrary, he went ahead dishing out falsehood and propaganda about the whole crisis which prevented a just and equitable resolution of the crisis. The authority of the University of Ilorin went ahead and fired the 44 lecturers despite the non-victimisation clause in the June 2001 agreement. The minister himself knew that this was wrong of government and had in fact written a letter on September 14, 2001 to government to the effect that the sack of the lecturers was in violation of the 2001 agreement. Yet, he made a U-turn and started misinforming the public. He should not have allowed himself to be used to rubber-stamp falsehood."

The reaction of ASUU to this was the paralysing six month strike action which became a major yardstick for adjudging Borishade as an incompetent minister both by the public and the senate.

But there are other weighty allegations against him by ASUU which eventually got the listening ears of the senate. ASUU has consistently accused Borishade of misapplication of a whooping sum of N1.3 billion stabilization fund. According to Akinyeye, Dr Borishade explained to Nigerians that he withdrew the sum of N600 million from the stabilization fund for organising the All Stakeholders Education Forum. This did not go down well with ASUU as they saw this as a misapplication of the fund. The academic community equally disagreed with Borishade's claim of using part of the fund for financing the National Open University, adding that such money is supposed to have been deposited in a fixed account to cushion the effect of shortfall in funds to the universities.

Explaining in details how his ministry has been spending the stabilization fund, Borishade had told Vanguard in Abuja that part of the fund had indeed been paid to the lecturers even before he became the minister. He says: "The stabilization fund was established in 1992 with a seed money of N1.2 billion. In 1995 some money was withdrawn from this fund to meet what they called the Abacha package, and they were paid to members of ASUU when they went on strike, when they wanted some money. In 1999, there was accreditation exercise that was carried out to check the qualities of education we were delivering, and some N96 million was spent for that. Then in 1999 when ASUU had an agreement with the Federal Government and I was not even there then; there was need to reinforce each of the university, to meet with the shortfall of the 1999 FG-ASUU agreement, and N264 million was used to do that. He continues, "In April and May 2001, we had a curriculum conference to review the curriculum of universities. The NUC spent N26 million to do that, and they were paid to lecturers and professors who participated in it as honorarius. In the past three years, we have had an application for JAMB, about 1.3 million students. The university vacancies that existed are only 150,000. And the Federal Government decided that we should resuscitate the Open University with 28 study centres and with an anticipated students population initially of 600,000. And government directed that we should look for sources of funds from everywhere. ETF was one source that we sought. So there is this money in the stabilisation account of the universities and I believe I have responsibility to decide how this stabilisation should be done.

And that is why the National Open University borrowed N600 million from this stabilization fund". These explanations however did not convince ASUU enough.

Further piqued by ASUU is the drafting of the autonomy bill for universities by the Federal Ministry of Education which Borishade presided. Akinyeye says that "the 2001 agreement provided for a separate agreement on university autonomy, and that universities will be run according to the status establishing them, and that no external forces will determine how universities will be governed.

But they went ahead to draft an autonomy bill behind us which in actual fact is autocracy bill meant to subordinate all the statutes of the universities and to erode the powers of the National Assembly to make laws for the universities by endowing the NUC and the minister of education with legislative powers over the universities."

Members of the ASUU had earlier been suspicious of the intention of the former minister of education when he allegedly rejected the reports of Professors Ijalaiye and Ade-Ajayi-led committees on autonomy, two eminent academics whose views both at home and abroad on university academic and administrative matters are reverred and who had counselled in their reports for the need to grant self-determination and academic freedom to the universities as was the tradition before the coming of the military.

Relatedly, ASUU had lampooned Borishade for turning the National Universities Commission into an arm of the Federal Ministry of Education and for empowering it more than its statutory duties. Akinyeye says: "Before Borishade, the NUC used to be a regulatory body for the university system but under Borishade, the NUC saw itself more than a regulatory body which has been treating the universities as its adjunct, dishing our instructions to them on so many matters, including how they have to spend their grants.

With all these controversial policies executed by Borishade, a deluge of petitions was already waiting for him before the upper chamber of the National Assembly who wields the power of confirming ministerial nominees. And during the question and answer session, Borishade was confronted with further accusations such as awarding a whooping sum of N400 million UBE classrooms contract to a company he allegedly owns, Boris Nigeria Limited, although he has denied ever owning the company. He was also accused of calling himself a professor when he is not one as well as not replying all the letters sent to him by the senate and the House of Representatives while in office. Taken together all these allegations and petitions against him the Senate therefore came to the conclusion that he is not fit to be a minister once more by refusing to endorse his nomination.

As the rejection of Borshade's nomination came as relief to many Nigerians, a daunting task is definitely before the new minister of education, Professor Fabian Osuji whom both the academics and other stakeholders of education expect to bring about a turnaround in the beleaguered education sector.