Mounir Gwarzo, the suspended Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), on Tuesday insisted that Kemi Adeosun, Minister of Finance, has no power to remove him from office.

Gwarzo stated this during the House of Representatives hearing into the circumstances leading to his suspension.

“On whether the Minister can suspend me from office, the answer is no,” Gwarzo said when Tajudeen Yusuf, Chairman of the probe panel, gave him the opportunity to make his final comments.

However, Adeosun maintains that she, as the Minister of Finance, has powers to suspend Gwarzo, adding that she would be making recommendations to President Muhammadu Buhari based on the matter.

“Mr Mounir is not removed, he has been suspended and he is not the first DG of SEC to be suspended. In the absence of a board, the Minister does have powers to suspend,” Adeosun said.

WHAT THE INVESTMENTS AND SECURITIES ACT SAYS

Section 8 (1) of the Investments and Securities Act 2007 provides how a Director General or any member of the SEC board could be removed: “A member of the Board shall cease to hold office if he (a) becomes of unsound mind; (b) becomes bankrupt or makes a compromise with creditors; (c) is convicted of a felony or any offence involving dishonesty; (d) is guilty of serious misconduct in relation to his duties; or (e) is a person who has a professional qualification, and is disqualified or suspended (other than at his own request) from practicing his profession in any part of Nigeria by the order of any competent authority made in respect of him personally.

“The President may at any time and upon the recommendation of the Minister remove a person to whom subsection (1) of this section applies: Provided no full-time member of the Board of the Commission shall be removed from office without the approval of the Senate.”

The Investments and Securities Act 2007, however, is silent on whether a Minister can suspend a serving SEC DG, pending investigation. In fact the Act did not make any provision for the suspension of a serving DG or commissioner.

On Adeosun’s remarks that “in the absence of a board, the Minister does have powers to suspend”, nothing in the Act supports this.

WHAT THE PUBLIC SERVICE RULES SAYS

During Tuesday’s investigative hearing at the National Assembly, Gwarzo pointed out that the letter of suspension issued to him stated as follows: “This suspension is in line with the Public Service Rule 03405 and public service rule 03406 pending the conclusion of the investigation.”

He, however claimed that “this public service rule that she quoted does not exist in the Public Service Rule. Her intention is to make reference to 030405 rather than 03405. That 030405 does not give the Honourable Minister the power to suspend the DG of SEC”.

ICIR found Gwarzo’s claim to be true. There are no rules 03405 and 03406 in the Public Service Rules, and rules 030405 and 030406 do not confer on the minister the express authority to suspend a DG.

According to Rule 030304 of the PSR, “(a) It shall be the duty of every officer to report any case of misconduct that comes to his/her notice to an officer superior to the officer involved.

(b)  When an officer’s misconduct is brought to the notice of his/her superior officer, it shall be the duty of               that superior officer to report it to the Permanent Secretary/Head of Extra Ministerial Office without                   delay. If he/she considers it necessary that the officer should be interdicted, such recommendations                 shall be made in the report.

(c) On receiving the report, the Permanent Secretary/Head of Extra Ministerial Office shall take action in               accordance with Rule 030302-030306 as appropriate and, if necessary, shall interdict the officer.

(d)  At the appropriate point in the investigation, the officer may be suspended in accordance with Rule                  030405.”

Rule 030405 states: “(a) An officer who is under interdiction or suspension shall notify his/her Permanent Secretary/Head of Extra Ministerial Office of his/her intention to leave his/her station. He/she shall however not leave the country without the specific approval of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.

(b) An officer under interdiction is also responsible for keeping his/her Ministry/Extra-Ministerial office                      informed of the address at which instructions to him/her can be delivered.

(c) If he/she fails to comply with the instructions delivered to him/her at such address within seven                         days of such delivery, he/she will be regarded as absent from duty without leave.”

Rule 030406: Suspension should not be used as a synonym for interdiction. It shall apply where a prima
facie case, the nature of which is serious, has been established against an officer and it is considered
necessary in the public interest that he/she should forthwith be prohibited from carrying on his duties.
Pending investigation into the misconduct, the Federal Civil Service Commission or the Permanent
Secretary/Head of Extra Ministerial Office (if within his/her delegated powers) shall forthwith suspend
him/her from the exercise of the powers and functions of his/her office and from the enjoyment of
his/her emolument.

Gwarzo also argued that the Public Service Rules cannot be used to suspend him since SEC has its own separate rules and regulations, as contained in the Investments and Securities Act. He quoted PSR 160103 to support his claims.

“If you look at the Public Service Rule, which is 160103, it clearly states that, for an institution that already has their own policies, they should be guided by that. My letter of appointment clearly states that my appointment will be governed by the provisions of the Investment and Securities Act. So, the question is, what instrument did the honourable Minister use or rely on in my suspension?” Gwarzo said.

Now, PSR 160103 states: “Parastatals are to retain and improve existing rules, procedures and practices in their establishments and ensure that there are no deviations from the general principles contained in the Public Service Rules. For example variations in probationary periods and maturity periods for promotion only reflect organizational peculiarities and not inconsistencies with the Public Service Rules. However in the absence of internal rules and regulations on any matter, the relevant provisions of the Public Service Rules shall apply.”

CONCLUSION

Going by the above rules, and by Adeosun’s narrative during the hearing, a prima facie case was established against Gwarzo after it was proven (through documents from the Corporate Affairs Commission as well as bank mandates) that he remained a director and shareholder in two separate companies while still DG of SEC. One of the companies, Outbound investments, had, in fact, transacted business with SEC by supplying diesel to the organisation.

Adeosun had also stated that a thorough investigation into the matter could not be carried out with Gwarzo still at the helm of affairs, and that there were information (not supported by evidence, though) that he was already moving documents away from his office, hence the need for him to be suspended.

It is also safe to say that since the Securities and Investments Act (cited above) is not clear on the suspension of the SEC DG, the ministry of finance was right to have relied on the Public Service Rules to suspend Gwarzo.

However, it appears Gwarzo has a valid point since his letter of suspension was signed by Kemi Adeosun, not the Federal Civil Service Commission or the Permanent Secretary of the finance ministry.

By Kingsley OBIEJESI.

On Friday, Goodluck Jonathan, former President, told a gathering in Malaysia that the education sector in Nigeria recorded significant improvement during his time in office.

Jonathan said this while presenting a paper at the International Summit on Peace, organised by the Junior Chambers International (JCI).

He said that his administration’s special attention to education was based on his belief that it was the only way to achieve sustainable peace and development in Nigeria.

JONATHAN’S WORDS

“My administration took education seriously because I saw education as the weapon with which we could break the bond between illiteracy and crime levels,” he said.

“Throughout the time I was in office, education enjoyed the highest sectoral allocation in the nation’s budget.

“This was why we were able to scale up our education programmes, especially at the tertiary level, where there was an obvious need to address the challenge of insufficient spaces for our youths.

“We built 12 additional conventional universities and two more specialised institutions, including one maritime university and a police university.

“With that, we expanded the opportunities to educate our youth in relevant fields, and produce the manpower needs of our economy.

“I am a firm believer in education, and just as I had said elsewhere, any nation that does not spend its wealth in educating its youth will eventually spend that wealth to fight insecurity.”

FACTS

Indeed, the Jonathan administration approved the creation of 12 new federal universities in states that, before then, had no federal university. They include Kogi (Lokoja), Nasarawa (Lafia), Gombe (Kashere), Taraba (Wukari), Jigawa (Dutse) and Katsina (Dutsin-ma).

Others are in Ebonyi (Ndufu-Alike), Bayelsa (Otuoke), Ekiti (Oye Ekiti), Yobe (Gashua), Kebbi (Birnin Kebbi) and Zamfara (Gusau).

It is also true that Jonathan commissioned Nigeria’s first Maritime university, located in Okerenkoko community in Warri, Delta State, in 2014.

Also, the Jonathan-administration upgraded the Nigerian Police Academy in Kano to a degree-awarding institution in March 2015.

It is arguable, however, whether the creation of these new universities translated into “significant improvements” for the education sector.

For instance, the Maritime University in Warri has remained a source of controversy, with Rotimi Amaechi, now Minister of Transportation, threatening that the federal government could abandon the project, and branding it “a waste of resources”.

Most of the newly-created federal universities, like almost all government-owned institutions, lack adequate funding and infrastructure to run optimally.

ASUU STRIKES UNDER JONATHAN

According to Isaac Obasi,a professor at the University of Abuja, the Nigerian university system recorded a total 14 months of industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) during Jonathan’s five-year presidency.

They are as follows: five months in 2010, shortly after Jonathan was sworn in to succeed late President Musa Yar’Adua; three months in 2011 and six months in 2013.

It must be said that the problem was not specifically caused by Jonathan, but, well, they took place under his watch.

JONATHAN’S BUDGETARY ALLOCATION TO EDUCATION

The budgetary allocation to the ministry of education in 2010 — when Jonathan was Yar’Adua’s deputy — was N295 billion. However, the amount increased considerably to N356.4 billion in 2011, Jonathan’s first full year on the job. And it kept increasing subsequently: N400.1 billion in 2012; N432.6 billion in 2013, N495.2 billion in 2014 before dropping slightly to N483.1 billion in 2015.

Under Muhammadu Buhari, it dropped to N367.73 bn (6.01 percent) in 2016 and N448.01bn (approximately 6 percent) in 2017.

CONCLUSION

Jonathan was right to state that the education sector received the highest budgetary allocation during his presidency, even though the allocations fell way short of the 26 percent recommendation by the United Nations.

However, just like successive administrations, the increase in the budgetary allocations to the education sector under Jonathan, did not directly translate to a “significant improvement” in the sector.

Many Nigerian students, mostly children of the rich, continued to flock out of the country in search of better education in Europe and America and even neighbouring Ghana.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommends that every country set aside at least 26 percent of its total budget to enable nations pay proper attention to rising education demands.

By Kingsley OBIEJESI.

Last week, the Christian Association for Nigeria (CAN) alleged that out of all the parastatals in the ministry of education, only four are headed by Christians.

Samson Ayokunle, the CAN President, made the allegation when criticising some of the topics added to the new syllabus of Christian Religious Studies (CRS).

“To say the least, that is a misleading statement from a Minister who is not only trying to Islamise the ministry with all the appointments he has made but denying the reality of discrimination policy under his watch,” Ayokunle had said.

“A situation where 13 of their heads are Muslims while the remaining four are Christians is an ill-wind that would blow no one any good.”

17 PARASTATALS — IS THAT TRUE?

Ayokunle’s statement implied that there are 17 parastatals/agencies in the ministry of education. This isn’t true.

According to the website of the ministry of education (www.education.gov.ng), there are 21 parastatals, but these include the West African Examination Council (WAEC), which is a sub-regional body and is not under the direct control of the ministry. The chairman is  Evelyn S. Kandakai, a Liberian.

So if one excludes WAEC, then there are 20 parastatals on the list.

However, the list of newly appointed heads of education parastatals, released in August 2016, featured the Nomadic Education Commission and the National Institute for Nigerian Languages, both of which were not listed as parastatals on the website of the education ministry. These two take the number of education ministry parastatals to 22.

ANSWER: No, there are at least 22 parastatals in the education ministry.

13 MUSLIMS, 4 CHRISTIANS — IS THIS TRUE?

Here is a table containing the parastatals in the ministry and the religion of their heads

ANSWER: From the the table, it is clear that the ratio of Muslims to Christians in the leadership of education parastatals is not 13: 4. Instead, it is 13:9. Therefore, CAN President Ayokunle was WRONG when he said “a situation where 13 of their heads are Muslims while the remaining four are Christians is an ill-wind that would blow no one any good”.

By Kingsley OBIEJESI.

Discussions about the “removal” of Christian Religious Studies (CRS) from Nigeria’s secondary school curriculum have been ongoing since June 14 when a delegation of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) paid a courtesy call on Acting President Yemi Osinbajo at the State House.

During the visit, Samson Ayokunle, the CAN president, pointed out that whereas the new curriculum stipulates that CRS – also referred to as Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) – will no longer exist as a subject on its own, Islamic/Arabic Studies and French have been introduced.

Ayokunle told Osinbajo that the curriculum had earlier been dropped by the ministry of education after CAN raised objections. He however expressed surprise that the same curriculum had resurfaced.

“This curriculum is the brain-child of Nigerian Educational Research Council, an agency of the Federal Ministry of Education. To us in CAN, its introduction is an ill-wind that blows nobody any good for so many reasons,” he had said.

THE GENESIS

The curriculum, which has now assumed national importance all of a sudden, actually took effect from the beginning of 2015 as announced by Ismail Junaidu, Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), a parastatal of the federal ministry of education.

This means that it was drafted and approved by the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

The education ministry explained that a new curriculum was introduced to prune down the number of subjects offered by primary and secondary school students in accordance with international best practices.

Among other things, a new subject called Religion and National Values (RNV) was introduced in the new curriculum, comprising Christian Religious Studies (CRS) and Islamic Religious Studies (IRS), Civic Education, Social Studies, and Security Education.

All these used to be separate subjects on their own, except Security Education, which was newly introduced as a result of the challenges of the Boko Haram insurgency.

SO, WHAT IS THE MATTER?

Harmless and innovative as the idea may sound, religious leaders from both the Christian and Muslim divides think it is a bad idea to merge CRS and IRS.

They feel both should remain separate entities as they have always been and let children be taught the religion of their parents instead of forcing a Muslim child, for instance, to take CRS lessons or vice versa.

According to Nicholas Okoh, Primate of the Anglican Church in Nigeria, the ministry of education has no right to merge both subjects into one. “We recognize our differences, but we call for unity … Let Muslims be Muslims and Christians be Christians,” the clergy man was quoted as saying in May.

This was strongly supported by Ralph Madura, a priest and the secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), who said that that the so-called merger “would create confusion”.

“Every right-thinking person knows that religion is a very sensitive issue in this country,” he added.

Lakin Akintola of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), the new curriculum reduces the role of religion in national development.

According to him, by merging the study of the two biggest religions in the country, FG is simply telling the kids that religion does not matter.

“If the Federal Government educates Nigerians without a special place for religion,” he warns, “it will only succeed in producing clever devils.”

FACT

According to the new curriculum as published on the website of NERDC, the subjects to be offered by students include: English, Mathematics, Nigerian Languages, Basic Science and Technology (BST), Religion and National Values (RNV), Cultural and Creative Arts, CCA, and Arabic.

Under RNV it is stated as follows:

1. Listed components will serve as themes in the Religion and National Values Curriculum
2. Contents are planned for all children to take Social Studies, Civic Education and Security Education themes
3. Separate classes should be run for CRS theme and IS theme
4. Consumer Education, Disaster Risk Reduction Education and Peace and Conflict Resolution curricula are infused into the Civic Education, Social Studies and Security Education Themes.
5. Create enabling environment for the subject in all schools

Also in the curriculum, Arabic was marked as “optional”.

Also, Junaidu had explained, on many occasions, the so-called merging of CRS and IRS.

He blamed the unnecessary fuss over the issue on the “ignorant and greedy publishers” of the text books for the subjects.

“In all, we have not changed the contents; the contents are intact,” he said.

“I wouldn’t like to use the word merged, because when you use the word, merging, it would look like you are taking them (both CRS and IRS) as one,

“As far as the listing is concerned, they are standing as distinct courses, but merged under one subject listing.

“In each of these, we made provisions for periods to be set aside for teaching CRS, we have periods set aside for IRS, and we have periods set aside for teaching Social Studies.

“When we developed the curriculum, we also developed the teachers’ guide; and each of these teachers’ guide is separate.”

BOTTOM LINE

Religion is no doubt a very delicate issue in Nigeria, much more delicate than even tribal sentiments, hence caution should be applied when dealing with such issues.

Criticism of the new curriculum by Christian and Muslim leaders suggests that adequate consultation was not carried out during the formulation of the policy.

Nigerians remain divided on whether the new curriculum should be reviewed again to reflect some important subjects – history for instance – that were surreptitiously expunged years ago.

Some say the teaching of core religion should be left for the churches and the mosques but many feel a better approach ought to have been adopted by the government before announcing the new curriculum.

And as the brouhaha continues, the words of Wole Soyinka, the noble laureate, came readily to mind, that “If we do not tame religion in Nigeria, religion will kill us.”

CONCLUSION

Has Buhari removed Christian Religious Studies (CRS) from the curriculum, as currently being bandied about on social media?

The answer is NO. What is in place is a course comprising both Christian and Islamic themes with the teaching of national values.

Roughly one month ago, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said one of the reasons the revised curriculum of primary and secondary schools cannot stand is that it contains satanic topics, such as ‘Is Jesus the son of God?’

While condemning the new curriculum, developed by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) and already in effect since January 2015, Samson Ayokunle, President of CAN, had said: “If the new curriculum is treating the two religious subjects separately as being claimed, why do we have a satanic topic in the Civic Education like ‘IS JESUS THE SON OF GOD?’”

He described the merging of CRS and IRS as themes under one umbrella topic of ‘Religious and National Values (RNV) as an “obnoxious, divisive and ungodly time bomb”.

This was just one of numerous statements by leaders of the two leading religious groups on the alleged “merging” of Christian Religious Studies (CRS) and Islamic Religious Studies (IRS) in the curriculum.

However, the ICIR has obtained the RNV syllabus from one of the secondary schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and after carefully studying it, it could not find any trace of such topic.

It was also discovered that students are not compelled to offer both CRS and IRS, as claimed by both Christian and Islamic leaders.

RELIGIOUS AND NATIONAL VALUES

RNV is made up of the following: CRS/IRS, Social Studies, Civic Education and Security Education.

According to the curriculum, the aims and objectives of the subject are, among others, to: “inculcate the spiritual, moral, social, political and intellectual role of Muslims.

“Assess the students’ acquisition of knowledge in practical application of Islamic teachings in daily life.

“Inculcate in the students satisfactory intellectual capacity to benefit constructively from post-basic education in Christian Religious Studies

“Foster progressive and continuous development of Christ-like character.

And “develop Nigerian Youths into responsible citizens”.

The subject consists of Papers 1 and 2; Paper 1 being CRS or IRS.

An instruction on the paper read: “Candidates who registered for CRS should answer questions on CRS only while candidates who registered for IRS should answer questions on IRS only”.

Both CRS and IRS have a total of 60 marks and they are divided thus:

CRS: Old Testament 30, New Testament 30 = 60

IRS: Qur’an 15; Hadith 15, Fiqh 10, Tarikh 10, Tawheed 5, Tadhib 5 = 60

Paper 2 is made up of Social Studies, Civic Education and Security Education. It also has a total of 60 marks divided thus: Social Studies – 30, Civic Education -20 and Security Education – 10 = 60.

CRS TOPICS

Topics under CRS are distributed thus:

Each topic has different contents but the question: “Is Jesus the Son of God?” did not feature anywhere in the curriculum.

IRS TOPICS

Topics under IRS are distributed thus:

There are also contents under each topic.

RECOMMENDED TEXT BOOKS

Again, contrary to claims by some people that CRS and IRS are combined in the same RNV textbook, the syllabus, as seen by the ICIR clearly recommended separate textbooks by different publishers for CRS .

There was no column for recommended text books for IRS.

ANYTHING WRONG WITH THIS SYLLABUS

Going by the issues that gave rise to the development of a new curriculum in the first place, such as reducing the number of subjects offered by students, and also given the enormous research that went into the development of the new curriculum, one may agree that the introduction of RNV is a good development.

Leaders of the two major religions in the country have all called for the unbundling of the CRS and IRS under one parent subject called RNV. They want the subjects returned as distinct and separate courses, just the way they had been over the years.

On July 11, the House of Representatives gave them their wish, passing a resolution directing the Ministry of Education to revert to status quo and remove both CRS and IRS from the RNV.

“The new curriculum is in conflict with certain provisions of the Nigerian constitution,” it said.

“Section 10 of the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, 1999 makes Nigeria a secular state and therefore religion should be separated from national values.”