Former President of Nigerian, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has described the present state of education in the country as confusing. Obasanjo made the statement during the 2019 Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF) held at Dubai, United Arab Emirates on Saturday.
The forum which was tagged “Changemaker for Nigeria”, Obasanjo, while responding to a question from a member of the audience disclosed, “I think if you ask me specifically about Nigeria, where we are in education today; I will say we are in confusion.
“And I don’t know whether you will feel that way. But that is the way I feel. We are really in confusion.
According to the former president, Ogun State, where the government of the state has four state universities. However if you take a close look on any of these universities; they are nothing but a glorified secondary schools. That is what they are. He said it is time we face our education system squarely and do a real serious study over our system, including what we really have to do in Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) culture, arts and robotic. If we fail to do that, we are not making any progress.”
While responding to an earlier question from the anchor, Julie Guchuru of the Arimus Media Ltd, Obasanjo affirmed it has become binding for African leaders to come together and impose for example, a 10-year compulsory education for the youths, Obasanjo added their cannot be any progress for any societies without good education.
“We need popular education for all. The former president disclosed there are still some parts of Africa where popular education is still not embraced. Taking Nigeria for example, obasanjo disclosed, we have six geo-political zones; three in the South and three in the North. The three Southern geo-political zones have general education literacy of above 90 percent.
However, “In the North-East, it is only 53 percent. Imagine the gap? And North-East is the epicentre of Boko Haram. So, so we can see a direct correlation between education and violence in the North-East? You can see that education has, directly and indirectly, something to do with Boko Haram violence.
The former president called on Africans leaders to adopt what he called self-reliance. He said Africans should produce their own materials; provide basic domestic needs for its people; this will go a long way.
Obasanjo in his words “I always say to Africans, that don’t let us aspire to go to the moon. Let us leave those going to the moon. We should aspire to feed ourselves. Let us produce what we need and buy from ourselves. Whatever you think that will be beneficial, it is welcome development, be a leader but don’t lead alone; lead with others.
