Former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has criticised President Bola Tinubu for offering scholarships to students in St. Lucia while millions of Nigerian children remain out of school.
Obi, in a statement posted on his X page on Wednesday, described the president’s action as a gross display of negligence and a betrayal of the Nigerian child.
He argued that Nigeria’s developmental challenges are rooted in leadership failure and prioritisation of the wrong issues.
“It is heartbreaking that our President, the leader of a nation with the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, would travel to St. Lucia to offer scholarships to children there while the education system back home is collapsing,” Obi said.
The former Anambra State governor noted that public schools in Abuja, the nation’s capital, have been closed for months, yet the president’s attention is focused abroad.
The 63-year-old referenced alarming statistics, citing a UNICEF report which estimates that around 20 million Nigerian children are currently out of school.
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He also pointed out Nigeria’s low literacy rate of under 60%, far below the global average of 87%, as well as the country’s life expectancy of 54 years, one of the lowest worldwide.
Comparing Nigeria to St. Lucia, Obi said the Caribbean nation enjoys a literacy rate of over 90% and a life expectancy of more than 72 years—figures that place them in the high category on the Human Development Index (HDI), while Nigeria ranks low at 161 out of 193 countries.
“How does it make sense that a president of a country grappling with such dire statistics would go to a better-performing country and offer them scholarships funded by Nigerian taxpayers, while millions of children at home lack access to education and teachers remain unpaid?” Obi queried.
He argued that by offering scholarships to St. Lucia, the president demonstrated an understanding of the value of education, yet continued to deny that same opportunity to Nigerian children.
Obi called on Nigerians to reject what he described as the ongoing normalisation of misplaced priorities and to work towards building a nation that genuinely serves its people.
