Peter Obi, 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), has called on Nigerian government to shift its focus from excessive infrastructure spending to investing in education.
Gatekeepers News reports that referencing the Universal Basic Education Commission’s (UBEC) alarming report which revealed that over 20 million Nigerian children are out of school and that many enrolled students lack basic literacy skills, Obi emphasised that the country is facing an educational crisis of massive scale.
In a statement shared via X, Obi criticised the government’s financial priorities, lamenting the trillions of naira being allocated to infrastructure projects that are often abandoned or have little impact on actual development.
He said, At a time when education should be our most urgent national priority and most critical investment, we as leaders continue to spend trillions on infrastructures, most of which contribute little or nothing to the measurable development index and cannot be completed and renovations that are a misplaced priority, while the foundational sectors like education remain in crisis.”
“Education is the most powerful investment we can make in the future of this nation. We must urgently redirect our focus towards building our national human capital by providing quality and functional schools and investing in access to learning for every Nigerian child.”
Obi stressed that education remains the most effective investment for Nigeria’s future and urged the government to urgently invest in human capital by building functional schools and guaranteeing learning opportunities for all Nigerian children.
He said, “A nation that neglects its young people has no future. We must urgently redirect our priorities, and invest in quality education. Our children deserve classrooms, not abandoned projects.”
“To build a stronger, safer, and more prosperous nation, we must invest in our children, because when we fail them, we have failed our nation.”
He warned that continued neglect of the education sector amounts to a betrayal of Nigeria’s future.
Obi also condemned federal government’s recent proposal to spend ₦712.3 billion on renovating Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos. He argued that such spending is insensitive at a time when millions of Nigerians are battling hunger and poverty.
He said, “ It is profoundly troubling that at a time when millions of Nigerians are facing the crushing burden of hunger, the Federal Government has chosen to approve a staggering ₦712.3 billion—not to feed its people, not to lift them out of hardship, and not to invest in their well-being, but to renovate an airport.”
“This raises a fundamental and urgent question: Where are our national priorities?”
