Peter Obi, former governor and presidential candidate, has strongly criticized President Bola Tinubu for offering scholarships to students from St. Lucia to study in Nigerian universities.
Obi said this is not an example of good leadership. Instead, he believes it is a betrayal of Nigerian children who are still struggling to access basic education in their own country.
In a statement released on Wednesday, July 2, Obi pointed out that many Nigerian children in public primary schools are not going to school because their teachers are on strike. The strike is happening due to unpaid salaries, and this has kept students at home for weeks.
He said it is heartbreaking that while Nigerian children are missing out on school, the President is offering educational help to children in other countries. According to Obi, this shows a lack of priority and care for the country’s future.
He asked why the government would focus on helping foreign students when millions of Nigerian children are still being denied their right to education.
Obi ended by calling on the government to fix the problems affecting education in Nigeria first before offering help to others outside the country.
His statement shared on social media reads
‘’I have consistently maintained that our underdevelopment is due to Leadership failure.
It is heartbreaking that our President, who is the leader of a country with the highest number of out of school children in the world and with the students in the capital of his own nation Abuja presently not attending schools, would travel to St. Lucia and offer scholarships to children there, while his own country’s education system is in ruins, and even currently his nation’s capital, the Federal Capital Territory, the supposed seat of governance, have public schools shut down and closed for months.
This is not leadership, it is negligence at its peak. It is an act of betrayal against the Nigerian child.
Nigeria has approximately 20 million children out of school, according to UNICEF, the highest number globally, with a literacy rate of under 60% far below the global average of 87%. Similarly, the life expectancy stands at a mere 54 years, out of the global average measurement of above 70 years, one of the lowest in the world.
On Human Development Index (HDI), which is the most critical measure of development, Nigeria is ranked in the “Low Category” at 161 out of 193 countries measured, while St. Lucia, a Caribbean nation, has a literacy rate of over 90% which is above the global average of 87%.
In life expectancy of more than 72 years, which is within the global average.
On HDI which Nigeria is in the Low category, they air in the “High Category”
So tell me, what sense does it make that a president of a country with such terrible and dire statistics would travel to a country with better indexes of development especially in education and still offer them scholarships funded by Nigerian taxpayers when Nigeria children are largely out of school and the teachers not yet paid for months?
Mr. President, by offering St Lucia students a scholarship, shows he knows how important education is, while depriving Nigerian students of the same access to education.
We must, as a nation, reject these continued normalisations of misplaced priorities and build a better nation for us and our children.
A New Nigeria is POssible. -PO”
