Unity Schools Crisis: Ministry Must Lead With Dialogue, Not Directives

BY GBOGBOWA GBOWA

The unfolding crisis over the resumption of students in Nigeria’s Federal Unity Colleges has moved beyond a disagreement over the academic calendar. It has become a test of how a democratic government manages public institutions, handles legitimate stakeholder concerns and reconciles policy ambition with transparency and accountability.

At the centre of the storm is the Federal Government’s concession of the historic King’s College, Lagos, to the King’s College Old Boys’ Association (KCOBA), an arrangement which the government and the alumni body insist is a Public-Private Partnership rather than a sale or privatisation.

But the semantics have done little to calm the storm. For parents, teachers, workers’ unions and sections of the wider Unity Schools community, the fundamental question is not merely whether the transaction is technically called a “concession” or “PPP”.

Their concern is whether the Federal Government is gradually transferring effective control of a public educational institution to a private interest without adequate consultation, safeguards and public scrutiny.

And, rather than resolving that legitimate concern through engagement, the Federal Ministry of Education has chosen confrontation.

That approach is now threatening to disrupt the resumption of students across the Federal Unity Colleges.

The Joint Congress of unions in the Federal Ministry of Education, in a September 10 communiqué, announced the suspension of resumption in all Federal Unity Colleges until further notice, linking the action directly to opposition to the King’s College concession. The action affects more than 100 Federal Unity Colleges across the country.

Yet, barely a day later, the Ministry fired back with a military fiat attitude that schools must resume, and giving staffs a marching order.

In a directive dated September 11, 2026, the Director, Senior Secondary Education Department, acting on the instruction of the Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, rejected the workers’ communiqué as “illegal” and “unauthorised” and ordered all Federal Unity Colleges to reopen on Monday, September 14.

The principals were directed to open their gates, hostels, classrooms and administrative blocks from Sunday, September 13 to receive returning students and ensure full academic activities commence the following day.

The Ministry also disclosed that the Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force had been notified to ensure protection of lives and unhindered access to the colleges.

That response may satisfy the logic of administrative command, but it does not resolve the underlying policy crisis.

Indeed, it could deepen it, looked at from the following backgrounds:

The controversy did not suddenly emerge this week. In July, the Federal Government announced its approval of the concession of King’s College to KCOBA. The alumni association presented the arrangement as a transformative partnership designed to mobilise private capital for infrastructure renewal, teacher development, technology, scholarships and student welfare.

KCOBA subsequently announced a N100 billion endowment initiative and maintained that the concession would not alter the federal character, public identity or national mission of King’s College.

The Federal Government has similarly insisted that King’s College has not been sold and remains government property, describing the arrangement as a PPP intended to bring private-sector investment into the rehabilitation and management of the institution.

That explanation, however, has not sufficiently addressed the questions being raised by stakeholders.

According to reports on the Ministry’s September 4 directive, the concession agreement had been concluded and the immediate handover of the college to KCOBA ordered.

A transition committee was to complete the process within six months, after which funding from the Federation Account would cease.

That is a major policy change. And major policy changes affecting public institutions cannot be expected to enjoy public confidence simply because government says the arrangement is not a privatisation.

The public is entitled to know the difference between ownership, management, control, financing and accountability under the agreement.

Who appoints the governing authority?

Who controls admissions?

What happens to tuition and other charges?

Who employs and disciplines teachers?

What happens to existing federal workers?

What happens to students already admitted under the federal Unity Schools system?

What are the government’s continuing obligations?

What happens after the concession period?

What safeguards prevent the model from being replicated across the remaining Unity Colleges without adequate public scrutiny?

These are not hostile questions. They are democratic questions. PTAs are not an enemy of government.

The resistance from parents should equally not be dismissed as an attempt to frustrate government policy.

Parents are directly responsible for the welfare, education and safety of the children enrolled in these institutions. Their concerns therefore deserve to be heard.

The Chairman of the King’s College PTA, Peter Oluwaleye, has questioned the concession, arguing that parents whose children were admitted into King’s College as a federal Unity School should not suddenly find the institution operating under a fundamentally different arrangement without their consent or adequate explanation.

Parents have also questioned the six-month transition period and demanded clarity on the terms of the concession.

At a broader level, the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria and other stakeholders have opposed what they perceive as the commercialisation of Federal Unity Schools, warning that the move could undermine the original national-integration objective of the institutions.

Even if government disagrees with those arguments, disagreement does not extinguish the stakeholders’ right to be heard.

The Ministry’s latest position creates an uncomfortable contradiction. On the one hand, it tells parents to rely on official information and assures them that the safety and welfare of students are paramount. On the other hand, it is directing principals to open school gates in the middle of a dispute involving their own workers and parents, while security agencies have been notified to ensure access.

That is hardly the image of a settled education system. It risks turning a policy disagreement into a confrontation at school gates.

And that is precisely what a responsible ministry should prevent. The question is not whether the Minister possesses administrative authority to issue directives. He undoubtedly has statutory responsibilities over federal education policy and the Unity Schools.

The question is how that authority is exercised in a democracy. Authority is strongest when it is accompanied by consultation, evidence and accountability.

A minister does not demonstrate leadership merely by issuing commands. Leadership is demonstrated by the ability to bring opposing parties to the table, explain government policy, listen to legitimate objections and negotiate safeguards where necessary.

The Ministry should therefore resist the temptation to treat every disagreement as insubordination.

A PTA is not a trade union.A parent demanding disclosure is not an enemy of government. A worker questioning a policy is not automatically sabotaging national education.

And a stakeholder demanding to see the terms of a concession involving a public institution is exercising a legitimate democratic interest.

The immediate responsibility of the Ministry should be to de-escalate the crisis. It should publish, or otherwise make available for proper public scrutiny, the material provisions of the King’s College concession agreement, subject only to legitimate confidentiality restrictions.

It should explain precisely what “concession” means in this particular case.

It should disclose the duration, governance structure, funding obligations, admission policy, fee safeguards, staff arrangements, performance benchmarks, monitoring mechanisms and termination provisions.

It should also explain why the concession was considered necessary, what alternatives were examined and how the government determined that handing management responsibilities to the old boys’ association represents the best public-interest option.

Most importantly, the Ministry should convene an urgent stakeholder meeting involving the PTA, workers’ unions, School-Based Management Committees, Unity Schools Old Students Association, KCOBA and relevant government agencies.

The objective should not be to stage-manage endorsement.

It should be to resolve the disagreement.

The bigger question: what happens to the other Unity Schools? This crisis has exposed a larger policy issue.

If King’s College is being presented as a model for a new approach to public-school management, Nigerians deserve to know whether the government intends to replicate the model across the Federal Unity Colleges.

Earlier in the year, organised labour and other stakeholders raised alarm over reported plans involving as many as 120 Federal Unity Colleges. USOSA also protested against the reported sale of portions of Federal Government College land in Kano under PPP arrangements.

The government therefore has an opportunity to put the matter beyond speculation.

It should tell Nigerians plainly: What is the long-term policy for Federal Unity Colleges?

Are they remaining wholly public? Are they moving towards PPP management?

Will old boys’ associations be permitted to assume management of other schools?

Will government funding eventually cease?

Will students continue to enjoy the same terms and conditions?

And what institutional safeguards will prevent public education from becoming progressively commercialised?

These questions cannot be answered by circulars alone.

Resumption must not become a contest of wills.  The children caught in the middle of this dispute have done nothing wrong.

Parents have spent money preparing for resumption. Students have been psychologically prepared to return to school. Principals and teachers are caught between conflicting instructions. Workers are threatening industrial action. Government is insisting on compliance.

This is precisely why the dispute requires political maturity. A situation in which children arrive at school gates only to encounter protesting workers, angry parents or security personnel is not a successful resumption.

It is an avoidable institutional failure.

The Ministry of Education should therefore reconsider the language of command and embrace the language of engagement.

If the concession is genuinely in the public interest, the government should have nothing to fear from transparency.

If it is not privatisation, government should demonstrate that distinction with the actual terms of the agreement.

If KCOBA’s intervention will improve the school without compromising public ownership, affordability, federal character and government accountability, the government should show Nigerians how.

And if legitimate concerns exist, the government should be prepared to amend the arrangement.

Leadership is more than issuing orders

The Unity Schools were established not merely as buildings in which children receive lessons, but as instruments of national integration.

That heritage imposes a special responsibility on whoever administers them.

The present crisis offers Minister Alausa an opportunity to demonstrate that leadership is not synonymous with administrative fiat.

The Minister can insist on resumption and still convene dialogue.

He can defend the concession and still publish the terms.

He can reject the unions’ communiqué and still listen to their grievances.

He can protect government policy and still respect the rights of parents and other stakeholders.

Indeed, doing all these things simultaneously would be a stronger demonstration of authority than sending security agencies to enforce access to schools.

Nigeria’s democracy should have matured beyond the idea that an official directive automatically settles every legitimate public disagreement.

The Ministry of Education owes the nation more than a reopening date.

It owes Nigerians clarity, transparency, accountability and confidence.

The immediate objective should not simply be to force the gates of the Unity Schools open on Monday.

It should be to ensure that when those gates open, they open into a school system whose students, parents, teachers and government are confident about who is in charge, under what rules, for whose benefit and with what accountability.

That is the leadership Nigerians should expect from the Ministry of Education.