Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president of Nigeria, asserts that the country needs to move quickly and aggressively to adopt development plans and policies that will expedite the eradication of illiteracy completely in a few decades.
He foresaw disaster for the nation if education for all residents is not prioritised.
Obasanjo believed that if the alarming number of children who are not attending school is not handled, Nigeria will generate more drug addicts, terrorists, bandits, and other social misfits.
With a sorrow for the nation’s approximately 20 million out-of-school children, Obasanjo claimed that these youngsters would become a burden on society if they were not educated, given authority, or given the essential skills.
The claims made by the former president are included in a statement released on Sunday by Kehinde Akinyemi, his special assistant for media.
He clarified that in order to stop this, a 25-year socioeconomic development plan that gives priority to technology and education among other things is required.
He claims that attendance at secondary school will be required under the development agenda.
A 25-year plan for socioeconomic development that will be widely accepted by all political parties in the country and enacted by the National Assembly, with State Assembly approval also needed for State Houses of Assembly passage of certain bills.
We start the implementation process with a five-year plan.
That plan will, in practice, function as a near-constitution.
The implementation’s top focus will be universal education.
“No Nigerian should be able to leave secondary education without having completed their eleven years of mandatory education.”
To guarantee that no Nigerian child is left out of popular education and that all children who are not enrolled in school attend school, a five-year plan must be established.
In order to provide every Nigerian with a basic education that is equal to six years of formal schooling, adult education should be started.
We ought to give ourselves ten years to eradicate illiteracy from Nigeria.
Over 20 million Nigerian children who are not in school today will become wealthy recruitment hubs for drug addicts, Boko Haram, bandits, and other societal misfits no matter what we do to educate, empower, and provide skills.
Additionally, he asked the federal government to create an atmosphere that is favourable to economic success.
The security of food and nutrition via agribusiness ought to be the second. Energy for everybody should be the third.
Manufacturing and industrialization ought to come in at number four.
Science, technology, innovation, and artificial intelligence—or AI—should come in fifth.
In each of these cases, the government ought to create an atmosphere that is favourable to the growth and operation of the private sector.
Furthermore, the declaration stated that any involvement the government may have—beyond that of a policymaker and facilitator—should be founded on a private-public partnership, with the government acting as a junior partner.
Within Nigeria
