Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education, has revealed that the Federal Government was against the reopening of schools on January 18, over the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, but had to compromise.
Adamu had announced last week that his office was reviewing the dated for the reopening of schools, due to rising cases of infections in the country.
Many Nigerians had expected that the review would lead to the postponement of the date.
However, Sani Aliyu, coordinator of Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 stated that the minister’s comment does not mean that date will be moved forward.
The Federal Ministry of Education on January 15, released a statement approving resumption of schools across the country.
Following the backlash he received from some Nigerians, Adamu, while speaking on Monday at the daily briefing of the PTF on COVID-18, said:
“We sat down, looked at the figures and we took the decision that schools should not open. Unfortunately, we have to state this because it is supposed to be a collective decision, but you must understand that the schools we are talking about, the Federal Government has only about 100 out of thousands of schools.
“The schools are under the jurisdiction of states and just as the PTF was unanimous in saying that schools should not open, states were unanimous that schools should open. So, we have to compromise and as PTF we shall monitor what is happening on a daily basis. There could be some review again.”
