 According to UNICEF Outer School Children in Nigeria hits 20 million and President Bahari says corruption is undermining government's investments in education. Tonight, the Beginner Town Hall series counting down to the 2023 elections as 2022 winds down. This is Post-Politics and I am Mary Anna Cohn. The President's Major General Mohamed Bahari has said corruption undermined his administration's achievements in the education sector. This came about eight months after members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities asked who on February 14 started their ongoing strike. In spite of efforts by government, many more Nigerian children are dropping out of school daily. Now in three years, major unions within the education sector had caused down tools putting students, parents and the entire country in a state of frustration. Data obtained from the website of the Central Bank of Nigeria revealed that Nigeria's educational sector suffered massive capital flight during the regime of President Mohamed Bahari. Specifically using the CBN's balance of payment statistics, Nigerians have spent a hefty sum of $3.5 billion on foreign education in the past seven years. Joining us to discuss this is Professor Richard Aduche Wokochahi, a professor of law at the River State University. Ikechi Wogo is also joining us, he's an educator and a national transformation agent. Also joining us is Dr Akin Meluhi, Principal Consultant at Erudio Hub. Thank you gentlemen for joining us and Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, good to be here. Thank you gentlemen for joining us. Merry Christmas. Okay, great. I'm going to start with, Akin, you obviously are in Lagos, so we'll start with Lagos education. Looking at the statistics that we have, I mean $3.5 billion is a lot of money, especially for a country that's still looking for forex to deal with a lot of things and of course facing a downturn. A few months ago, Oendo State Government decried the fact that a lot of children are being taken from public education and now taken to private schools and they wanted to make a law of sorts that would deter teachers who had children in private schools from doing that because they feel that it's killing public education. But the question is, what about the elites? That's interesting. Okay, well, I like the statistics that you put forward, you know, and I'll first take you through the back end to understand why these things happen. So the elites, okay, well, the elites always have a way around things. But if you look at it, education in Nigeria is quite funny. It's in a funnel where you will find out that, so you have over 10 million out of school children, then Lagos is accounting for about 19% of that, you know, and what is causing that is this, Lagos, they want to do more. They want to provide good education for them, but they don't have the land space. Now so, you had evolution of about 20,000 public private schools helping them out to see that you want to do this because the law actually says that you should be responsible for elementary stage education for all your children as it were, you know, but they can't. They want to, but they can't. So there are many factors that you need to look at before you begin to talk about, okay, so what happens to the elite and what do they do around it? So somehow there's a loop that is just all around it that we need to be able to diagonalize out, then understand why these things are happening. So this now brings you to the discourse between the public and the private sector. And there's a whole lot that goes on with them, you know. So for example, the, say, I was privileged to be in a dialogue between facilitating a talk between the public sector and the private schools, you know. And they had conversation and the private school leads are saying, man, we are, the nutrition rate is high now. We have serious problems. We have to pay about 26 kinds of levies. And so post pandemic, the pandemic crisis posted now, where are they going from here? So they have to pay for drivers levy, development levy, local council levy, signage levy, radio levy, TV levy, all kinds of levy. And the nutrition rate is getting high. And these guys are saying we are getting tired. And you know, the moment that happens, the human capital of the state and of the country is already jeopardized. So I think that there are more of really intricate things to look at as we begin to balance of what happens between them and we talk about what happens to the L. The reason why I asked that question is because we have leaders who are supposedly to lead us by example, because many would point fingers at those people who are leaders today that they were beneficiaries of the free education back in the day. But that's not necessarily the case now. And then there are many excuses for why we cannot have free education as it was back in the day, because things have changed. But then if you're telling me who's struggling to get my child free, well, better education in a private school to not do that and bring my child to a public school where I'm even struggling to get paid. What about you? Are you willing to bring your own children from the private schools to the public school? And what level of education is available in the first instance? I'll tell you what. For example, in River State, and I'm going to toss that question to you, Professor Wakachai, in a bit. I have had people send me pictures and videos of classrooms in River State, a state where the president would say, well, you know, the whole country would say the governor is walking his Mr. Project. But then how much of those projects have been allocated to schools, to primary schools, to secondary schools that are public under Governor Wike. So again, if we're looking at why was the deterioration of public education is the way it is, should we not be looking at the men and women who are in charge of the system, especially the likes of Governor Wike? But, OK, well, Ikechi, I think I'll toss this to you because you're also from River State, right? Yeah, so I could take that on. Now, the truth of the matter is that I think most of the development where they joined in River State is interest peaks. So the governor wants to project his interest and to also begin to wonder, this was a man who was minister of state for education a couple of months before he became governor of River State. We all hoped that education would be the epicenter of his development as tribes, but unfortunately, it seems like they have other interests in roads, in other things, some other kinds of projects. When he's called Mr. Projects, he's called Mr. Projects for everything else but education. You know, yes, he's tried to down the cases of frequent strikes amongst teachers and education workers. But we still are not satisfied with the kinds and qualities of results where it gets in, especially across the external examination. So education is deep and beyond the infrastructure, which is suffering a lot of decay. Yeah, we don't have as bad cases as we see on most of the screens. But then, you know, we have to maintain what is already on ground. And what is the effort? I mean, to say that in River State, as which is River State is, we still have students who learn in vacant roofs, especially during the rains. We still have flooding in a lot of our schools and a lot of our facilities. So for some months in 2022, for example, there were certain students that were caught off from the basic learning environment because of excess flooding. And it seemed like the government was helpless. But then we're saying that the government that is visionary should think beyond 2022 and say in 2023, OK, this is where this happens, that the students suffer, the teachers suffer. How can we first know this? But it doesn't seem to be in plan. I mean, in terms of infrastructure, then you begin to also look out for the level of participation on the private sector. And then the big question like you were asking your guests a while ago, how many politicians would want to have their children in public schools than go for the private schools where a few private individuals who are paying their taxes and who are being levied by the government are making efforts to bring on some bit of respite to parents. And so we can say that, yeah, we are not clamoring to all the children out of out of the shores of Nigeria to do their primary and secondary schooling. We can have some bit of hope, you know, with schooling in Nigeria because some private schools are making the effort. And so when you look at this, you begin to reason with the fact that government is only focused on the present and has practically no plan for tomorrow. And if you think about it, we are just caring and caring. Oh, Ikechi, I think we're having a little connection issue there with you. But let me toss it back to you here, Akechi. I like that we're looking at it from different, you know, regions. We're going to come back to the lake. I was saying someone has talked about a few things he's done, you know, in terms of paying school fees, why, but we want to go down to the basics. Let's look at the potting of every state. Let's use Lagos State as a litmus test. Where is education? Looking at the SDG goals, have we been able to at least scratch the surface? And in the order of priority, where does education stand? All right, so I would take it more from the federal level than take it down to the state level. So the government is trying. I think President Buyer's regime has tried to see how to increase it between 2016 and date, you know, but we did. I mean, so the past two years, we had like a 50 percent increment is saying by 2025, there should be like 100 percent increment from where he is. And so what we are trying, what I'm trying to say is this, as so now about 1.8 trillion is going into that for education. So we're saying that, OK, that looks huge. That looks massive. I mean, for expenditures, for for all of that, for the federal ministry of education, we are saying that, OK, global standard says that the only way a nation can cater for the education of its people is to ensure that you have a minimum of 20 percent of your budget allocated to it. So trickling down down to Lagos. So that tells you that the gap we have, we are just at about eight percent there about we need 20 percent. So what happens to schools post the pandemic period? What happens to school? You have dilapidated buildings, you have teachers and all of that. So I think the Lagos has tried in some bit. Teachers have been paid. We've seen a few of those schools well renovated and they're getting better. I mean, so in the past three months for like a year, they've been doing a lot of renovation in the schools. And the past three months, there have been a lot of commissioning going on. So I think he has made education one of his most paramount pilots in this in this government where he has placed education amongst the top five, you know. And I think education has probably the largest education and largest budget. So somehow education has got priority here, Lagos. You know, but there's still more to be done, you know, because many things that people look at is when you go into a place and you find a school not doing well or you find a school that is dilapidated. It's not really it's not necessarily directly the the fault of the maybe the commissioner for education or the state government. And I'll tell you that the reason is because the the primary schools, you know, they are the state is not directly responsible for the primary schools. I hope you know that. Yeah, we do know the local government. But then the question is, where is the local governments in the scheme of things? OK, so don't forget these local governments are still fighting for their monies to be given to them directly. A lot of the duties of local governments have been taken by the state governments. And so there's a blurred line, but they are getting their location now. It's been a battle, an uphill battle. But then it's late in the day, but we can still start doing something. So again, I'm saying there are lots of things that need to be done at the local government level. But these people are being micromanaged by their principles, the state government. The local government is not directly. They're not directly being micromanaged by the state. Really? Their funding is federal. I mean, so if you are one of the ways to get this really sorted is get the commissioner for local government and let them tell you the boundaries and the things that they do, you'll be shocked. They don't respond. They don't get to see where you get your funding from shows who can control you. The funding is not from the state. So if it's not from the state, you can't control them. They can only give report at best. You can only woo them at best. So honestly, it's that's why I said that the funnel is a bit funny. So you check about leadership, you talk about leadership, you then talk about, OK, the local government, what kind of leaders do we also have there? Do they are the people who are very, very compassionate about education? Are they passionate about education or are the leaders by circumstance? So you check a local government chairman has his own commissioner for education. And so you check the credibility of the person is the person also into. So you check it. If you go into the basic education right now, it's completely in a mess. So and the secondary schools now have to start retraining them for them to get better. So in Lagos, you find that the secondary education is far better than the primary education. But that's really sad because that's the foundation of all of it. Before you get to the secondary level. But I'm grateful that you're talking for Lagos State. But because, again, Lagos State just had its local government elections. Thank goodness. Now, in River State, I don't know if we have Professor Woko Chabang, but I'm going to toss this to Ikechi. Ikechi, the last time is Professor here. OK, good. Well, Ikechi, the last time local government elections held in River State, I'm sure that we know what happened right now. That issue is still dragged and caught by between the APC and the PDP. And you and I know what the modus operandi is. These are all men that one way or the other allegedly have been put in there by the governor, who are loyalists to the governor. How can we say that these people cannot be micromanaged by Mr. Governor? Full question. The governor is the prime leader of the state. And my thinking is that whoever the local government has been straight or east, the governor should ensure that there's proper handshake, there's a proper alignment of vision. So what is my vision for education, whether it's at basic level or tertiary level or whatever? What is my so if the local government chamber or the local government council has whatever template they want to run with, they must align with the center. That's why there's a central government headed by the governor. So the government should not be or the local government chairman or whatever should not be absolved from any blame. It should be a teamwork, a team frame. We are headed in this direction because, of course, like in River State, we've had cases in previous administrations where the local councils were really not serious with education and then the state government had to come in there and try to construct schools like the 750 schools, across the board. OK, so it should be a proper teamwork, a proper alignment of ideas. Let's get on the table. Let's have one symposium or one retreat or one summit and say, this is my vision as state government for education. And everyone plug into this, except you have something superior. Of course, we have the conversation table and let's draw upon it. But to say that everyone is operating in isolation for me, it's not credible enough. And that's how we expect at a time like this. We're having this conversation because we want to see what we can do better. Looking at how education has played out in 2022, whether it be primary because we're looking at state for now. We will go to the textual education when we get the professor on. But how do we better? How you started by talking about land and space in Lagos, which is a big challenge. And we know that Lagos is mostly surrounded by water. But then a loss of infrastructure development is happening. So again, government does have the powers over whatever structures or buildings or land. For someone who's interested in education in Lagos state, what do you do in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and stakeholders to see how these kinds of issues can be addressed, especially as the governor is going for a rerun for his election? So like I said, I think Governor Somalu is doing his best for education. And, interestingly, the Commissioner for Education is somebody very passionate about education. Mrs. Folasha de Fisayo, she's doing so well. I mean, she's doing so well, I'll give it to her. I mean, so why do I say she's doing so well? I mean, I could see a bit of the efforts that they're making. I could see a bit of the brainstorming sessions that go on. I could see a few things about what they are up to, as it were. But you see, you are saying that how much is the budget? Is it the gap between 8 percent and 20 percent of what you call community best practice, which is that 12 percent is going to account for a lot of things. So even if you say that, oh, we're not having more buildings come up, how many can they come up? You see, we said that Lagos is responsible for 19 percent of the 10 million out of school children. And so I see the best is to see a better collaboration between the private schools and the public schools, because the government of Lagos, I think, they don't have the capacity to build all the schools that will cater for all the millions of children. So the best thing is to see how do we collaborate with these guys so that they can help enhance these collaborations in the work? Because you see, we can have these great ideas. And if we do not make a step or, you know, try to find out if these collaborations can be possible, then all we're doing is just Georgia and not taking action. Recently, the commissioner for education and the family circuit, which they called for, they had a facilitated knowledge session between the private school operators and the public school operators represented by the heads and the themes that they had. So they had the Georgia together. I mean, so everybody had to say, this is the problem. So they brought somebody from Loma. I mean, so they had to bring the director from Loma, had to bring the director from the tax place. They had to bring about about 16 power startups. You know, because these guys are saying that we are getting close over 20 levies. How are we going to survive as an organization? So it looks like you want to stifle us and we are going and the moment we pack up, then what happens to the children? We're going to jeopardize what they call the human capital of the country, of the state, as the case may be. So I think that more collaborations need to happen. I think more brainstorming sessions need to happen. I think that the state should be able to accommodate the private private education sectors to make sure they are not stifled. I mean, things like approvals of the school need to come in early. There are many schools that are not approved, you know, and a whole lot of that. So I think that they are doing their best, but they're still more than they can see. I think we now have Professor Wokochah back with us. Professor Wokochah, I'm going to ask you a very, very sensitive question. I lived in River State for six years and one of the major issues, one of the first things that I reported on as a journalist in River State was that a young child in I think, Jesses 2 or Jesses 3 was buried alive in a school premises while, you know, an initiation process was going on for secondary school students. She refused, obviously, to join the cause and then she was killed and buried in that school ground. It's not enough to say we want to build schools. We want to have more children come to school. How are we impacting the lives of these children and how we checkmating what happens within the school grounds? And I'm talking about the issue of cultism. I'll get to the university version of it, but then we want to grow education, but does it just stop at teaching and learning? Education does not grow from the top. Whether it's in the formal or informal sector, to get a random education, it came from the very beginning and what we feed into the system is what eventually it moves in the system, especially by the time you get to the tertiary institutions, but the average student lives in the society and what is promoted in the society is what impacts the students' ideas of the way to go. I am afraid that as a society, we have a large exchange phase. We have promoted the wrong values. We have recognized people who have engaged in wrong activities and we have not encouraged young ones to look at and look upon those who have been responsible and socially responsible as role models. Now, in that environment, it will be odd for you to expect the normal to happen. So what you see, what you reported in the school that you talked about is just the reality of what we face today in the society. Those who carry the couriers and the guns and the marches have better recognition in society. Look at your public service and you find that a lot of people, if you go back into their past, they have records that are in public domain that makes them on TV for those positions. So in the circumstance, it's not surprising that you see what you are seeing at the primary and secondary level, especially the secondary level. I think it's reflecting the values that the society is promoting and it's the more reason why we need to do something about it. Well, we're still talking education on plus politics as a town hall series and we are looking at the education sector as we get ready for 2023 elections, what should we be adjusting and how can we better the loss of the education sector? My guest still in the studio, Professor Richard Wococcia, who's a professor of law at the River State University, Keiichi Wogu, an educator and national transformation agent and also in the studio with me, Dr. Akin, Akin Pellew. He's a private consultant or principal consultant, a beggar pattern of a rodeo hub. Now, before we went on that break, a professor was telling us about why cultism has become a manus, such a manus, especially in the schools in River State, just like I reported. He talked about value and society, but let's talk about who the educators are, the people who are teaching in these schools, what kind of learning or teaching is going on in these schools, especially in River State. Well, to start with, when you have teachers who are hungry, we could say that because they are salaries are not even very reasonable. I mean, they can scarcely take their home and bring them back to work the following day. That's the starting point. And then it's not regular. I mean, it comes at the east end of the government of the day. You begin to ask yourself what level of dedication we would enjoy from this sector. And then you talk about influence. So, a situation, whether it's private or public, we still have a cream of the students from the homes of the elites. And, you know, my father is better placed than you. So how do you talk to me? Like the professor pointed out, he rooted values from society. And again, society begins to admire discipline at whatever level of oppression, you know, whether at the federal level or state level, who, I mean, I mean, who are tautish, okay, and they get to you with these crimes. Nobody investigates them. Nobody chides them for doing what they do. It seems like, okay, because you're some big man in goods, you are moved along. And then we really don't understand like we are our chief density titles and other societal titles to men who are known criminals. Nobody's asking anymore. Where did he get his money from? What's the source of his wealth? So all of this, I mean, these are the children of these kinds of people. Some of them are children of normal regular people, but they pick habits from the streets and there isn't proper correction at home, maybe because that is too busy, mom is too busy looking to order, you know, other provisions economically. And so all of this would come together in some way to influencing the overall behavior and character traits of these children. Then they bring them down to school. I learned from this movie without proper guidance, without proper modeling. I learned from that movie. I learned from that big brother or the other elder sister that this is a thing and then some children, even one of them, some children love to spoke, okay, in school because of, you know, a mix of peer pressure and all that. And then there is no parent that influence in school because the parents are either not serious about their business, the business of coming to work on a daily business and supervising these children and their outcomes. Some others are just particular about the academics. Oh, you did well in maths, you did well in English, you did well in social studies and they pay no attention to mentoring and modeling. They pay no other attention. So you see a teacher seated in school, seated in class or in the staff room and there's so much noise in the classroom and nobody goes to say, hey, stop making noise. So sometimes I'm driving to work and you see these children strolling it's 10 p.m. It's 11, sorry, 10 a.m. It's 11 a.m. You see some school-aged children in their uniforms still strolling to school and you wonder, is there no code of conduct? All of these things just get you worried and it just adds up to some of the the space that we see, you know, in the public schools. OK, yeah, that's it. OK, I think back to you. When I was younger, if you were asked as a child who you'd want to push your hero or who you want you would want to be when you grew up, most of us wanted to be our teachers because they were our heroes at the time. Is teaching still as... Is it? I don't know why you're laughing, but is it still as prestigious as we used to regard it? Do people even go into teaching now because they want to teach because they love it or because they want to earn a living? And if I mean, I'm trying to understand, are we there where we used to be or have we totally lost it? Suddenly, the dignity of the teaching profession has been greatly eroded. And so people do not find any form of dignity in going into that profession. So what you find in the public now is very simple. The teachers that you have, they are teachers. Most of them are teachers by circumstance. I mean, those days you have people who are passionate to say from childhood, oh, I have a hero as a teacher, so I want to end up as a teacher. Now, you are finding teachers who got there not because they wanted to be teachers. So if you diagonalize it, how did most of our teachers become teachers? So number one, that was not what they wanted to study in school. You hear they give me, they give me education. You know, when they give them education, they feel dissatisfied with life. And many of them just feel like, oh, they are not as good as they are as they are made. So the moment they don't get another job, they go and settle for for teaching. So some people have been looking for jobs for a while and interestingly, they will tell you that man, the only thing they can settle for is to be a teacher. So now when you bring that attitude into the classroom, you are going to find that there is no there's no motivation. There is no there's no form of modeling. They are not so excited about what they are doing. So a few things that you would say, oh, these are these are values you should pass to the children. They are not even connected. They are thinking of the business they have to go do at home. They're thinking of who they need to quickly reach out. And some of them have personal issues at home maybe because they are not paid well and they are they're still suffering a little thing and here and there. So the problem is a whole lot. And so you go to the family system to I saw the family the parents are so busy dumping everything on the teachers. So the moment the teachers cannot do it well, they come to shout on the teachers. But honestly, the teachers that we have put us to the states that have been training their teachers, but I think they're still a strong gap and there's a whole lot that needs to be done. Every day of my life I almost interact with educators and teachers, you know, across the globe. And I just find that many of them are not excited to be teachers. In fact, many of them are not proud to be called teachers. So I think that a lot needs to be done. So the mental state of the teachers, apart from apart from the monies that they end, what about the mental state? You know, do we really care about them? So if you look at other countries that go to the U.S. or a few other places, it's quite prestigious to be a teacher. You are excited, you're proud to be in a teacher, you know, and and and and interestingly, I see a few things Lagos have been doing these days. I see them award their best teacher. So I interacted with a teacher for the first time at the Lagos Education Summit. You know, I sat down, I listened to him on the panel session. I said, you're kidding me. This is not a public school teacher. And I was, I was, I was so I was, I was thrown away. And I was like, wow, this is good. Something is happening. But the gap is still there. There's still a whole lot that needs to be done. So we need to educate the teachers. Now go to the schools. Now when they have been, when they are starting to become teachers, what were they learning? The curriculum, the teachers training them. I mean, so are we backward in our curriculum? Is it obsolete? Is it still practical? So what we are teaching, now is it 24, is it 24th century education? And all of that. So you bring that back into the classroom. I said that there's just a whole lot that needs to be done. So we may need to overhaul the teachers. For some, we need to retrain them. For some, we need to have a graduate conversion program to ensure that their brain is washed so that they can see and be better. That's a whole political talk on this. I mean, let me bring that to you, Professor Wakata. Let's talk about Ashu because I mean, that's the elephants in the room as we speak. We cannot talk about all the education and not talk about textural education. Every year, we're churning out numbers of graduates and some of them can't spell their names. Some of them are unable to hold a job. And I mean, the list is endless. But then talking about the mental state of teachers, we talk about the lecturers who have been on strike for some time now. Can we say that the situation between Ashu and the federal government and this pay has been overly politicized because government is also on that particular table. Government feels that this is overly politicized. Again, what needs to be done for grounds to move or for the situation to get better? First, I think... Go ahead. Yeah, first, I think government has demonstrated clearly that it is not interested in promoting education in Nigeria. I said this is the sense of responsibility. The challenges we are facing, and it reflects even at the secondary and the lower levels, is more of changing environment and less of teacher quality. I agree that, like every profession, teachers need to be encouraged, they need to be retrained, they need to be encouraged to do all that they can to keep themselves up to date and to improve, to go beyond where they are. But our challenges are more environmental than teacher-based. Many students you have in the classrooms, what forms are available for the students to sit on to study? How do you teach 1,000 students or 500 students with your voice? And how on earth with those who are in the back, from the middle to the back of the hall, understand what you're saying? How about situations where you have students hanging around the window or sitting somewhere on the floor in order to find a point from which they can hear the teacher? The problems are more environmental and they are issues that government can address pointedly. So I am convinced that government has lost interest in promoting education. And we appear to have funded on education. Yes, we appear to have funded illiteracy more than we have attempted to fund education. We call on how many billion students who have spent on feeding out of school children, whether or not school is in session throughout the COVID period with... Professor, I'm so sorry. I think we're having connection issues with you, but can you hear me now? Professor Wakucha, I think we're having a connection issue with Professor Wakucha. Quickly, I think I'm just gonna toss to Ikechi. Can we pick it up from there until we're able to get Professor Wakucha about? Yes, we're talking about funding out of school children and all that, and that number is growing, especially in certain parts of the country. We had some statistics saying there are as much as 13 million out of school children in Nigeria at some point. I mean, we said, I don't know if that has grown to 15 or 17. And you're raising a negative force for the future that will come at us through pan-mitri, through the mechanism of all sorts, through dogry and all that. And if there is no real plan to cater to that population, then the nation will also stand at risk. And that is not also to identify with the poor administration, the poor administration of schooling for which we are raising constantly, we're constantly raising a mass underclass. You know, like Prok was saying, children who can barely spell their names and these children will grow on to become teachers, they will grow on to become captains of industry. Let's not forget that a cream of our politicians, political leaders, leaders, ministers, House of Representatives, members of the Senate and all that, a lot of them or all of them would have come from schools in Nigeria. So if we don't pay particular attention to basic schooling and the education as a whole, at whatever level, especially in that sherry level, you realize that decision-making will be tilted, decision-making will be slowed. And this would, in basic ways, slow the pace of development in Nigeria, a situation where any office site worker cannot really stand shoulder to shoulder and power with his contemporaries in other parts of the world because of the relatively poor remuneration, especially relatively poor exposure to basic teaching tools, teaching aids, teaching facilities. And all of this is on the shoulders of government to do, like the Prok was just saying a while ago, government should plan. So what is the plan for education for tomorrow? The next five years, the short term, the medium term, the future, can we have some hope on the vision the government has for education for the future of a nation like Nigeria? Otherwise, I tell you the truth, we're just sitting on the keg of gunpowder because this would include on our faces and they would begin to ask ourselves, where were we all this while? When all of these negative biases were building up and we actually kept quiet and did nothing. Talking about doing something about it, if not, we're sitting on a keg of gunpowder and we're acting, elections are around the corner. Campaigns are happening. They're giving us the best of fine and dandy words, telling us that they can't even change water to wine. What should Nigerians be specifically listening to or looking out for in terms of what these politicians have to say as they campaign for the education sector? For those, I mean, because if it affects warning, it affects all of us, so. So it's interesting that as we get towards election, you would hear a lot of promises, you hear a lot of high-sounding nonsense, you get a lot of promises come out. So I think that it's also a point of call for all of us to be able to ask ourselves. I think like, I get to say, said just now that what's the vision? What's the vision? So when you listen to a man and you say education is like the most important across all but. So when you listen to what the president has to say concerning education, you would look at the quality of what he's saying, check the depth of what he's saying, check the practicality of what he's saying, check the strategies that he's talking about. You will know whether he knows what he's saying or somebody wrote this thing for him and he's reading it out. You get it. And so most times people should be able, I think that people should be able to gather and say, okay, with what you have said, we don't think that this is good enough for you to say you want to do this. So I think what happens is that many times we are just excited about what they say and we don't go back to think about it. You know, so I think that as Nigerians and we should just be wise this time and let's go for depth and let's see what can deliver. And that's what I'll say around that. Ikechi, I'm going to come back to you. We talk about capacity development. You see politicians are very quick to say we're going to empower the youth. We'll empower the youth. I don't know what it means. I don't know if it's about giving them sewing machines. I don't know if it's about giving them metocycles or generators or barbing equipment. I don't know what empowering the youth in words of a politician means. But if we're not building capacity for young people as we, you know, are building our country side by side, what is the future of Nigeria? The future is really scary. I was reading something in the deal. It's just over the weekend. So it's real. The United Kingdom is actually coming now to Nigeria. Okay, and they are scaling low. So formerly it was at Tashiri students. It was at Happy Town Slides. Come for scholarships. There are opportunities. There are openings in UK universities. Right now, UK second month schools, UK primary schools are coming to our best students. So this is the future of the nation, right? When children who are 10 years old, 15, 20, and all of that, and of course, the best of them. And nobody would want to go there and just walk back into Nigeria because Nigeria seems not to have a plan for the Missutimu plan. I mean, it's crazy that you had some scholars go abroad and even when they were done, they still don't find jobs, fitting jobs with their good grades, with their first class and the rest of that. So it's really scary because when we talk about empowerment in these parts, we talk about, like you said, soy machines. Talk about hairdressing, teeth like two kids. We talk about clip-ass and all of that. Otherwise, we talk about, you know, imagine like somebody coming to campaign, give you $5,000 every month on what grounds, what work have you done? We should create work. I'm sure that the youth of the future, the Nigerian youth who's really aware of what he wants, what he's talking at school, he wants a life for himself. He wants to leave his house in the morning and go work and contribute meaningfully to the value of the nation. He doesn't just want to sit back at home and get a paycheck. And if you look at what is happening, a lot of what is going on in Nigeria, whether it's the social media area or the entertainment industry, most of these guys, most of these young people are fending for themselves. They are creating for themselves. When we talk about the creative industry, we have Nigerians who have come out of their acute frustration and they are saying, hey, I can do this for myself. And then the moment you begin to do that, guess what, the tax masters come in and they say you've got to contribute some substance to the nation. And it could be something of frustration when they want to clamp down on your office space, they want to shut you down. What did you contribute to my rising up to this place? And so it becomes a little bit of a poor balance on the skills where I work so hard that then you sit in that exalted office, you didn't contribute any meaning to my upbringing, to my social life, to my life after education. And now you want to come collect this. And so the first thing you want to think about is, how can I evade my taxes? And so Nigeria in particular is very good at creating these haps. Like Nigeria is very good at creating, grounds for corruption, grounds to shoot herself in the foot, grounds to undermine herself. Okay, so when we talk about empowering youth, like you pointed out, we should be talking about trainings. What basic skills do our young people need to feed themselves in the future? Look at the nations, China and the rest of them. Not all of their young people go to universities, not everyone would advance to university level. But basically, they enable them with skills. Oh, I can do this. Oh, I want to end up with basic technology. They equip them, they engage them, they ensure that there are jobs, they send them out, they outsource them to other nations where they can find use for themselves. And so bit of this revenue comes back to the Chinese nation, comes back to the country, to the national cofast. But in Nigeria, there is nothing, they just leave everyone to his fate. And then when you succeed, when you struggle and succeed, they say, oh, he's a citizen of my day, whether it is sports, or it is healthcare, or it is education, or it is any social sphere at all. The Nigerian nation, I think, needs to be more intentional about her citizenry. The Nigerian nation has to be more calculated. They need to say, this is the kind of future of what to happen to the nation in the next five years, the next 10 years. This is the kind of administration I want to leave behind. After eight years or four years of my political leadership, and then we want to measure the resource. That's a proper pressure system to say, was my plan effective at the end of the day? Otherwise, everything is just a chase after the wind, and Nigeria is fast becoming like a joke where we stand before the nation. So that's my opinion. I think the most important thing that you mentioned is a self-appraisal, which is something that, unfortunately, you might be that our leaders are bereft of. But let's quickly bring back Professor Wokoccia. I think we've been able to admit him. Professor Wokoccia, President Bohari has said that the education sector stinks of corruption, and he mostly was talking about the situation around the astro-strike. Again, he has said to young people that we should not see education as a means of getting government jobs. I'm going to allow you the last say on the show tonight. Where exactly do you think the president is going with this issue of not looking for government jobs? Of course, we all can't get government jobs. And then looking at the issue of corruption in the education sector, where do we start to deal with it? And how certain are we that we can actually deal with that corruption if it's something that is generally endemic in the Nigerian fabric? Well, first, I think in the first place, the president seems to be realizing this too late. He should have realized long ago why he had time to do something about it. Secondly, while I agree here, it's an endemic corruption in Nigeria. I think that the problem of education in Nigeria is not corruption in the schools. I think it is corruption in the system the system that saves the schools that is supposed to program the schools that should design what the schools are teaching and that should determine what the products of our education system are. I think that is really the problem like, it's not about what happens in the classrooms. It's a good thing the president is realizing this at this point, but I think whatever we are to do is no longer what he is to do because time has run out on this administration. It's a question of our thinking of what we want to do in the future. I think mind taking all the steps after taking the transitional period, but definitely we are in a very bad shape in the education sector in this country. And as the other guests have said, if we really want to get serious in this country, we will need to do something about the education sector. Education shows you where the general wants to go. The general wants, one of the British prime ministers said the trade, most of the priorities of the administration was education, education and education. And it's a nation that has no place for education or a nation that faces education the way we are treating it like a private business and not as a social service that is at the root of the nation's development has plans to fail. So I think we need to generally change the way we look at education. The country has talked about transitions, multiple transitions and a number of things. Education is not a business. And states that are serious, even the American state invests probably funds in promoting education at the private level. You must recognize education as a social service and the one that is at the root of the nation's surveillance and development. I think if we don't have the realization, I'm afraid we have our own at the moment and until we're able to think outside of that situation, we are in the woods. And for whoever decides, or whoever emerges and takes over from President Bohari after the transition in three elections, should education be the first point of call or do we have bigger fish to fry? If it has a mission at hand, education should be the first thing for me. He must face education and then face other things that follow. Okay, well, I want to say thank you, gentlemen. Professor Richard Aduche Wokachai is a professor of law at the River State University. Ikechi Wogo is an educator and national transformation agent and also Dr. Akinpalu is the principal consultant Eridu Hub, who's also an education consultant. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for being here in the studio. We appreciate that. And we're hoping that these conversations can be had often than once in a blue moon. Yeah. Thank you once again, gentlemen. And Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Well, that's it on the show tonight. All right, thank you. That's it on the show tonight. Tomorrow we return with yet another sector of the economy as we discuss and count down to 23-3 and all that we look forward to during the elections. I am Mary Annacon. Have a beautiful evening. Good night.