WITH information emanating from some parts of Northern Nigeria about the parlous state of education, it is no surprise that Nigeria is rated as the country with the largest number of out-of-school children in the world.

The United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, estimated back in 2022, that Nigeria had over 20 million children who were not in school, with majority of the victims in the North.

An insight into the depth of the problem came from Bauchi during the ongoing drive by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, UNICEF, to return out-of-school children to schools. A Director of the Bauchi State Universal Basic Education Board, Korijo Umar, told newsmen that 79 schools in Misau Local Government Area alone had one teacher each!

If this figure is to be believed, it means that successive governments have spent a lot of resources building schools without training and posting teachers to man them. The emphasis is on award of contracts without any genuine intention to educate the children of the masses.

It is in the same manner that English Language and English Literature teachers are reportedly scarce in a prominent state like Kano.

Down the decades, it would appear that the Northern elite have maintained their apparent determination to deny Western education to the children of the less-privileged people. They choose instead to focus them on Quranic education which offers few avenues for the poor to escape poverty and destitution. Meanwhile, these same ruling elite educate their children in the most prestigious schools in Nigeria and abroad, who return to continue lording it over the downtrodden.

A clear evidence of shameless weaponisation of illiteracy by the Northern elite was demonstrated when the 165 schools the President Goodluck Jonathan regime built in the North for the proper education of almajiri pupils were neglected after the former President was voted out in 2015. For years, some unpatriotic leaders of the region have come to see “educational disadvantage” more as a tool for more federal revenue allocation than a challenge to be stamped out.

We call on the leaders in the region to rise to their responsibilities and educate their people. They should go beyond the mere building of schools. They should recruit, train and retrain teachers to impart quality education to the children. Many of the educated youth roaming the streets can be picked for teacher training. Teachers can also be sourced from states which have more than enough.

That the North is the most volatile part of the country today is down to mass poverty, unemployment and illiteracy. The insecurity in the North is foisted by Northern youth whose rights to good education and improved standard of living were truncated by bad leaders.

Let us stop weaponising poverty and illiteracy.