Professor Chidi Odinkalu, former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, has launched a blistering attack on the Presidency's explanation for President Bola Tinubu's absence from the country, labelling the 'working vacation' defence as outrightly 'illiterate'.
Odinkalu, speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today, expressed deep concern that while global leaders were engaged in critical discussions on education at the United Nations General Assembly, Nigeria's administration appeared to have no coherent education policy to present.
"The world is discussing education. At the moment, as you probably know, there is a crisis with unity schools in Nigeria over the concessioning of King’s College. There is no policy on the concessioning of publicly owned schools, by the way, so this is just drawn out of the heart," Odinkalu stated, highlighting the ad-hoc nature of current decisions.
He further revealed that the last education policy Nigeria had was developed by Adamu Adamu when he was Minister of Education in 2017, and he expressed doubt that the current administration had even familiarised themselves with it, let alone updated it. "The number of out-of-school children is skyrocketing in the country, and we can’t even go to the United Nations and say, ‘This is our education policy.’ That’s how bad it is," he lamented.
Adding to the criticism, Odinkalu pointed to the credibility crisis faced by the President, noting that the President's inability to name his teachers or the schools he attended directly impacts his standing at international forums discussing education.
Perhaps most striking was Odinkalu's condemnation of the current administration's habit of having both the President and Vice President simultaneously out of the country. He described this as a departure from established conventions, noting that previous administrations, including those of Muhammadu Buhari, Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua, and Goodluck Jonathan, adhered to the rule of ensuring one of the top two leaders remained in the country.
"This is the first administration where the vice president and the president are making a habit of abandoning the country without leadership. It never happened before," Odinkalu asserted. He clarified that Section 145 of the constitution, which deals with presidential absence, does not recognise the concept of a 'working vacation' and primarily addresses absences exceeding 21 days, requiring a formal transfer of authority.
"No matter how you read the text of Section 145, the idea of a working vacation does not exist in that text," he stated emphatically. Odinkalu suggested that, legally, if one wanted to argue the 21-day period, they might try to interpret it as 21 working days using the Interpretation Act, but he stressed that this is not currently the prevailing understanding and the 'working vacation' argument itself is, in his view, unsophisticated.
The former NHRC chairman’s strong words underscore a growing concern over governance and Nigeria’s visibility on the international stage, particularly concerning critical sectors like education.