 Edikation mikit demand and denation. As we head into the final lap of the race towards general elections in Nigeria, we see that nothing has been said by any of our candidates for various offices about the shambles that today is our education sector. Section 18 of the constitution provides government charge to eradicate illiteracy. And to this end, government charge as and when it is practicable, provide free compulsory and universal primary education, free secondary education, free university education and free adult literacy education. Although primary and secondary school education are largely within the purview of state governments, the federal government in the concurrent list in the constitution can also establish institutions for post-primary education. Universities can under the concurrent list be established by both the federal and state governments. Under the sixth schedule of the constitution, local governments can establish and maintain primary and adult and vocational education institutions. In addition to all this, under the compulsory free universal basic education act section 2, every government in Nigeria shall provide free compulsory and universal basic education to every child of primary and junior secondary school age. Every parent shall ensure that his child would attend and complete his primary school and junior secondary school education. Section 6 of the act states that the magistrates courts or other state courts of competent judicial can hear cases relating to breaches of section 2 and imposed punishment. So how are we living up to the lofty objectives in our laws? So start with according to UNICEF, the globally recommended funding for education should be between 15 to 20 percent of a nation's budget. Nigeria in 2022 diverted 7.2 percent of the budget to education. Now in 2023 it's back to 5.3, not far from where it was in 2021. UNICEF notes that this is far from the biggest problem. Quote, far too many Nigerian children today are not in the classroom and for those who are far too many are not getting solid education that can translate to good prospects for their futures. According to Peter Hawkins, UNICEF representative in Nigeria. Additionally, the president noted to the punch edition of 27 October 2022 that 12 million kids are free to go to school. UNICEF has updated the number of out-of-school children to over 20 million as at October 2022. To compound things, it is known that in at least three states public security schools students do not even sit for the West African school certificates. As for tertiary institutions, Nigerian universities are just imagining from an eight month strike. Please join me in asking why are all our politicians so silent on these issues that make it the man that make it the nation? It's a very important thing. Yes. Recently I was watching news CNN, basically CNN. That was this beautiful site I saw and I thought to talk about it. The current British prime minister Rishi Sunak. This man went to, that was the period where they were talking about the compulsory mathematics learning for kids between zero to 18 years. This compulsory in the UK. Once you are one to 18, your child up to Muslim mathematics is compulsory, irrespective of your other, your chosen career of interest. When you are 18 years, when you are done at age of 18, you can decide to keep studying mathematics or not. Now the prime minister of Britain Rishi Sunak. I saw him in a school. They were having an exam like a high school or something. They went there, joined the teachers in this gluten question paper. Like just trying to have an understanding of interaction with the kids. I was not imagining, can we have a President Buhari or a Govno at least, don't come and change the press of people at least, go to school regularly, just check on universities, go to secondary schools, see what is going on there. All these politicians, many of them, if not all, their children are UK studying. Why are they sending their children to UK, US or Canada to study? Why? I'm not saying they should not send their kids there, but there must be something that the UK government or the US government or Canadian government is doing right about education. So we are just, we are joking with this. In some states like the South East, you have to literally beg some people to go to school. I think that was, that was during, if you go to like Anambra then they will tell you boys they really don't go to school, they prefer to go land trade. They don't understand the value of education and perhaps we've not gotten the kind of education that will suit them, their needs. And then when you go to, I know Southwesterns is a really trend, especially Legos. But when you go to the North, it's not even a question of education interest, you have a issue of insecurity. People are scared of sending their children to school, especially their daughters, so that they don't come and kidnap them and force them into child bride. So I... Bandits. So is a serious problem. I want to do a short poll now. Of all of us, four of us sitting here now, which one of our kids goes to a Legos public school? You can ask him. You can ask him. Let us face ourselves and say these things. Which my child never... None of my children went to Legos public school. Let's take another poll. Of the four of us, which of us did not go to a public school? I went to a public school. Well, it depends on the kind of... You know they have a different grade of public school. Federal government is a public school. Yes, even the federal government is a public school. So... We have different grade of schools. But they have different grades. We have different grade of schools. We are went to public schools. Funded by government. Yes, sure. Government owned. How can I say government owned or government funded? Exactly. We are went to school. At some point, yeah. Yeah. So why are we where we are today? They will say... Government will say, for instance, that government cannot do it all. But you can't do it all. Education is the future. They can't create an ability environment for policies to thrive that educators can... No, no, no, no. What you spend money on shows your priorities. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you believe... No proper funding. If you believe in the future, that the future is yours, is the children that you fund properly. You must... When UNICEF says spend 20% of your budget, it is because they know what it will translate to in the future. I was reading a book recently that was discussing innovation in America and taking it from where the free marketers are saying, oh, it's a private sector that is responsible for creating things like Apple, things like Google and all that and all that. And Mazuka too, the economists was arguing, no, that's not quite true. Because if you say what America spent on education in the 50s, 40s and 60s on science education, that what you simply found was that by the 70s and 80s they were going to reap the result. Today, the university student in America is doing robotics. Artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence. They're solving problems of the future. They are solving problems of the future. Even the art students who are doing quite well, exactly. So you will see our universities, first of all, there are 170 of them today. So funding is a problem. There are too many. Then you find, look, we have union like here which would be the best university. Let's not lie to ourselves. They are science lab. They have reagents. Of course they we have. That's what they we have. Look, that regard that we have, our problem is beyond this. There's no need for us to They will go into the past and see. We know we are talking about that. We are talking about flow of this. Right? It's very simple. They are funding education. They are sending people to school. But it is their own people because the idea is keep the people impoverished. Then you can use that as a selling tool to always come back. If Nigeria gets enlightened, education is light, if they get enlightened, what will happen is the competition will get fierce. Nobody must compete with the children of the politicians. It's very simple. So it's just trying to keep their people in power. Again, they are weaponizing ignorance. Exactly. So again, it's just recognizing ignorance. It's not for us to say why. When you see them going for campaigns now, you hear them say, Nigeria, Nigeria, is that a campaign? Talk about the issue. But they know that the people they are talking to. Ignorance. I think if we can spend more in education, education is not only within the foes of the formal institutions. Even if they can partner with the informal sector, see how they can galvanize them together form an education institution. You want to learn about trade and what have you, all those skills. If they can learn these things, I believe they can solve the next generation problem in Nigeria. We can be able to solve our problem by ourselves, even before we start importing ideas out. Tony is next after the break.