The 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has accused President Bola Tinubu of neglecting his role as a leader and betraying the children of Nigeria.
Peter Obi, in a statement on Wednesday, said it is unacceptable for Nigerian children attending public schools in Abuja to be locked at home while the President is offering scholarships to students from St. Lucia.
The former Anambra State Governor said the development is not only a failure of leadership, but a betrayal of Nigerian children.
“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,” he said.
Naijaonpoint reports that children attending public primary schools in Abuja have been at home for about three months over the face-off between the teachers in the schools and council chairmen over the non-implementation of the new ₦70,000 minimum wage and other outstanding demands.
Further reacting to the current situation, Obi, lamented that Nigeria currently has the highest number of out-of-school children, and the country is also low on the human development index.
He therefore criticized the decision of President Tinubu to offer students from St. Lucia a scholarship while children in Nigeria don’t have access to education and the teachers are not getting paid as due.
“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,” he concluded.