The squeak of worn-out sandals echoes through empty hallways. Chalkboards stand bare. Textbooks, where they exist at all, are relics of a bygone era. This is the reality of primary and secondary education in Delta State, a reality so grim that one might describe it as a kind of educational hell for the children trapped within it.
My organisation sent reporters across the capital environ to document the state of public schools. What they found was shocking, but perhaps not surprising for a state that has, for years, received some of the highest federal allocations in Nigeria. The infrastructure is crumbling. Classrooms are overcrowded. Teachers are demoralised and underpaid. Learning materials are virtually non-existent. The promise of quality education, the very foundation of a functioning democracy, has been broken.
Meanwhile, a parallel universe exists. Deltans, like other Nigerians, are spending billions of naira annually to send their children abroad. The United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada have become the preferred destinations for those who can afford to escape a failing system. The math is staggering: an estimated 3,000 children leave Nigeria for these countries each year. If we conservatively place the cost of educating one child in the UK at N120 million, we are looking at a staggering N360 billion drained from our economy annually.
This raises a profound question: why is the international community turning a blind eye? How can Western nations welcome the children of politicians with open arms while the schools those politicians oversee lie in ruins? The moral duty to condemn corruption seems to evaporate when it is not their own children suffering. I am certain that if the educational crisis in Delta directly affected their leaders, they would declare a state of emergency without hesitation. But because their children are abroad studying, they can’t be bothered.
Imagine what N120 million, the cost of a single child’s foreign education, could do for a struggling school in Delta. It could renovate classrooms, purchase thousands of textbooks, pay teachers a living wage, and provide technology for an entire generation. Multiply that by 3,000, and you have the resources to rebuild an entire educational system.
There is another, more insidious concern. The curriculum these children are buying in the UK, US, and Canada is designed for their societies, not ours. It prepares them for economies and cultures that are foreign to the Nigerian reality. We are, in effect, breeding a generation of expatriates, educated to serve other nations while our own crumbles. The Nigerian market, the Nigerian society, the Nigerian democracy, needs minds shaped by our own challenges and opportunities.
Nigeria has been captured by the very few, the political elite who hoard resources and neglect their responsibilities. The decaying schools of Delta State are a testament to this capture. It is a betrayal of the Nigerian child, a betrayal of our collective future.
This cannot continue. We must save our democracy. The time for action is now. We cannot afford to be silent while our children are condemned to a lifetime of ignorance. We must demand accountability from our leaders and challenge the international community to live up to its moral obligations. The future of Nigeria depends on it.
#savenigeriademocracy
By Ogbevire Christian Ashaiku (AKA Daddy Kris),
Human Rights Activist,
PhD Law Research Fellow,
Middlesex University, London
