JamzNG Latest News, Gist, Entertainment in Nigeria
Former presidential candidate and labor leader, Peter Obi, have issued spicy criticism of the Nigerian education system, mentioning the state of this sector “a very large crisis” and urged national leaders to prioritize education as the most important investment in the future of the country.
In a very strong statement posted on the official handle of X (previously Twitter) on Thursday, Obi regretted the state of basic education in the country, referring to the new revelation by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) that more than 20 million Nigerian children did not go to school, and the majority of those registered did not accept functional education.
“This scary statistics are also reflected by WAEC,” Obi noted, referring to the confirmation of the West African Examination Board (WAEC) that only 38% of the tandidat passed 2025 Wassce, marking the worst academic performance in five years.
Obi described the current approach to national development as not in harmony with the most urgent needs in the country, accusing the government in succession in prioritizing “trillions of infrastructure and renovations” of functional investment in education.
“When education must be our most urgent national priority and the most critical investment,” he wrote, “We as leaders continue to spend trillions of infrastructure, which mostly contributes a little or not at all to the measurable development index.”
He further criticized the ongoing capital projects that, according to him, did not increase livelihoods or translated into human development, while classrooms remained dilapidated, lack of funds, or absolutely not in many parts of the state.
Echoing the global consensus on education as the basis of national development, Obi urged the federal government and state to immediately direct their focus to “build our national human capital.” He called for quality, functional school, and inclusive access to learning for every Nigerian child, emphasizing that a country that ignored his youth “has no future.”
“Our children deserve to get classrooms, not the project left behind,” he said, adding that “to build a nation that is stronger, safer, and more prosperous, we must invest in our children because when we fail, we have failed our nation.”
Obi’s statement came in the midst of increasing public anxiety over the decline in Nigerian education standards. The UBEC report highlighted not only a large number of children outside of school, but also widespread illiteracy and poor understanding among those in schools, a phenomenon expert is referred to as “school without learning.”
This is exacerbated by new results -new WAEC, which shows a stable erosion of academic performance in core subjects such as mathematics and English.
