straight talk by Obinna F. Nwachukwu

Recently, some political office holders in Nigeria have been flooding the social media space with pictures of their children graduating from foreign educational institutions. At a time when local schools are in dilapidated forms and teachers owed several years of unpaid salaries and allowances, such brazen displays of affluence are very annoying.

It is very unfortunate that political office holders in Nigeria know that the kind of education they have structured in Nigeria might not equip you with all the skills you need to lead in your field. So, they take their children to countries that have made huge sacrifices to invest in their education systems. This is because they know exactly what they are doing. That is why they can never be bothered.

As a result, stakeholders in the education sector have intensified calls for a law to bar political office holders from sending their children to foreign universities. They  believe that if there is a law that either stops or regulates foreign education for public officials’ children, it would propel governments at all levels  to hastily attend to issues confronting public education in the country.

In March 2022, a few weeks after universities were shut down, one Sergius  Ogun introduced a bill before the House of Representatives seeking to prohibit public officials from sending their children and wards to universities abroad, unless the minister of education approves it.

Ogun’s bill was entitled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Regulate International Studies for Wards and Children of Nigerian Public Officers, to Strengthen Indigenous Institutions, Provide Efficient Educational Services for National Development; and for Related Matters’.

The legislator drew a nexus between the poor state of public tertiary education in Nigeria and the thirst for foreign schools, arguing that the bill has the capacity to address the problem of underfunding of higher education.

“This bill is proposed against the background of fallen standards in our educational system and the need to bring the sector up to speed with global best standards. Unfortunately, as a result of the inability of the government to provide quality education for its public educational institutions, Nigerians have resorted to private schools and foreign schools for their education,” Ogun said.

Unfortunately, despite its merits, the bill did not see the light of the day. The bill was rejected by parliament, with opponents saying the proposal would infringe on the rights of those seeking foreign education for their children. Others argued that not all government officials sponsor their children’s foreign education with public funds.

Today, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Ukraine, Ghana, Malaysia, Egypt and South Africa, just to mention a few, have become choice destinations for Nigerians in search of quality education. The trouble with this is that most of those who patronise privately owned educational institutions or those who travel abroad to study are children and wards of Nigerian public officers. These are the officers who should take responsibility for building our public institutions.

Suffice it to say that if the rich and poor go to the same tertiary institution or  secondary school , those in power would understand the need to adequately fund and take care of our educational institutions.

I recall the time when public primary and secondary schools were providing sound education. Many notable figures in society were products of these schools. But things changed when licenses were issued to private primary and secondary schools. The politicians are doing the same thing to higher education.

Ironically, most secondary and tertiary schools Nigerians attend abroad are public, hence one wonders why the country’s public educational institutions are being neglected by politicians.

If those countries had not made their public educational institutions appealing, would they be sending their children there? Hence, both political office holders and private Nigerians should stop sending their children for schooling abroad and let us build our own system to work. It is such a pity that the Nigerian government has destroyed public education in Nigeria.

And this brings to mind a recent news report published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), a global foreign-policy think tank, which said politicians contribute a bulk of £30m annually to the UK education sector with a significant percentage of the funds coming from Nigeria.

The report also found that at least 40 percent of governors — present and past — have sent their children to UK universities from 1999 till date, with only 10 states missing from the list.

In 2019, the Cable reported how Nigerian politicians, including the presidents and governors, often send their children to school abroad, while the country’s public education system battles with lack of adequate funding.

The CEIP publication explored how such studies overseas are potential sources of financial illicit flows from prominent politically exposed persons (PEPs) and politicians, some of whom have been accused of corruption.

Authored by Matthew Page, a former US intelligence community expert on Nigeria, the report revealed how PEPs in West Africa have channeled unexplained wealth into the UK education sector.

“It is not easy to estimate the overall value of this flow, yet it likely exceeds £30 million annually,” it noted.

“Most of these funds emanate from Nigeria and, to a lesser extent, Ghana; compared with these two countries, only a handful of students from elsewhere in West Africa seek education in British schools.

“All of Nigeria’s presidents and vice presidents, for example, during that period had done so. Likewise, roughly 40 percent of Nigeria’s current and former state governors have educated their children in the United Kingdom.” Citing Nigeria as an example, he raised questions on how government officials who are able to afford the high tuition fees for their children overseas become “inexplicably wealthy”, whereas the public service rules prohibit them from running private businesses.