On Wednesday, Laolu Akande, spokesman to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, tweeted that his principal “is in the UK to witness the son’s graduation ceremony.”
In the blink of an eye, that
tweet triggered a heated debate online: some argued it is a reminder of how
even Nigeria’s leaders do not believe in the country’s education system while
others rose in defence of the vice-president and said there was nothing wrong
in sending your children to study overseas if you can afford to.
VP Osinbajo is in the UK attending his son's graduation today. He returns to Abuja tomorrow— Laolu Akande (@akandeoj) July 17, 2019
Two days after Akande’s tweet, Ike Ekweremadu, former deputy senate president, took to the social media platform as well to announce the graduation ceremony of his daughter who finished from a foreign university.
Please, join me in congratulating my darling daughter, Sonia Chinonso Ekweremadu, BA Media and Communications, on her graduation.— Ike Ekweremadu (@iamekweremadu) July 18, 2019
Well done, girl. Proud of you. I celebrate you. pic.twitter.com/gTk5imIjFI
Rewind to ten months earlier when
Nigeria’s best university was only able to come after 635 others in the world.
Covenant University had been
ranked 636 in the report by The Times Higher Education, with two other Nigerian
institutions making the cut out of the top 1250 ranked: University of Ibadan as
677th and University of Nigeria, Nsukka as 1161st.
DO NIGERIAN LEADERS BELIEVE IN
THE COUNTRY’S EDUCATION?
The case of Osinbajo does not
come as a surprise example of a Nigerian leader whose child is studying
overseas. In fact, this has been the norm for many years.
My daughter, Hasfat, graduated today. Wishing her the very best! pic.twitter.com/xjbekyswHQ— Atiku Abubakar (@atiku) June 3, 2016
Bukola Saraki, former senate
president, also announced the graduation of his son from the London School of
Economics in 2017, while in the same year, the son of Aminu Tambuwal, governor
of Sokoto state, graduated from the University of Buckingham in London.
 |
| Bukola Saraki and his son, Seni |
Rochas Okorocha, former governor
of Imo state, could not hide his joy when his son completed his master’s degree
from the Imperial College, London in 2018, having finished from the University
of Manchester two years earlier.
 |
| Rochas Okorocha and his son, Afamefula |
It was the same feeling for Rotimi Amaechi, immediate past minister of transportation and former governor of Rivers state, whose son graduated from a Canadian university in June.
 |
| Rotimi Amaechi and his son, Obinna |
And the list goes on and on for
most of the top government officials in the country, including the number one
citizen, President Muhammadu Buhari, whose children finished from a UK
university in 2016.
OVERLOOKING NIGERIA’S CHALLENGES?
Sadly, however, there is a sharp
contrast in these universities across the globe with what is obtainable in
Nigeria where the academic staff in the universities have been on strike for at
least 15 times since 1999, for a cumulative period of 37 months, in addition to
other challenges including poor infrastructure and substandard education.
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