Our Reporter, Abuja
Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the LabourParty (LP) in the 2023 election, has criticized President Bola Tinubu’s decision to offer scholarships to students in St. Lucia, a Caribbean nation, while Nigeria struggles with a high number of out-of-school children and educational challenges.
Obi, who said this Wednesday via his official X handle, regretted that President Tinubu would be handing out scholarships in another country while children in no less a place than the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja have been at home for about three months because their teachers have been on strike.
“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,” Obi said.
Obi highlighted Nigeria’s dire educational statistics, including approximately 20 million children out of school, a literacy rate of under 60%, and a life expectancy of 54 years. In contrast, St. Lucia has a literacy rate of over 90% and a life expectancy of more than 72 years.
“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 Nigerian children are largely out of school and the teachers not yet paid for months?” Obi asked.
The former Governor of Anambra State emphasized the need for the government to prioritize the security and welfare of Nigerians, particularly in the area of education.
“We must, as a nation, reject these continued normalizations of misplaced priorities and build a better nation for us and our children,” he said.
Obi concluded by calling on the government to focus on addressing the country’s pressing issues rather than pursuing initiatives that do not benefit its citizens.
