Obasanjo Blames Leadership for Education Inequalities

Omolabake Fasogbon

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has challenged the youths to take up leadership roles to be able to salvage Nigerian declining education sector.

He said the fate of education is in their hands, urging them to fight to acquire leadership.
Obasanjo was speaking during the graduation ceremony of the Teach For Nigeria (TFN) fellows that held virtually recently.

According to the elder statesman, the event of COVID-19 has pushed inequality in education further, thereby making quality education a luxury.

He noted that TFN graduands, mainly youths, have been quite instrumental during COVID-19 by extending education opportunities to the under and less privileged, thus supporting the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.

He stressed that it was high time Nigerian youths took up leadership positions to transform the nation’s education system more sustainably.

“Please do not let anybody tell you that you are leaders of tomorrow, you are leaders today. Let nobody use today to make tomorrow impossible for you.

“I started making contributions to the world when I was serving in Congo in 1960, I was only 24 years old and when I became Head of State, I was under 40 years of age. The time to act and seek and seize responsibility is now.

“It is important that you know that leadership will not be handed over to you, but you have to continue to exert yourselves to get it. After all, as the saying goes, ‘power is not served a la carte,” Obasanjo said.

Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of TFN, Folawe Omikunle, stated that the foundation was able to successfully graduate 161 fellows, who have impacted not less than 9,660 students in 80 schools across Lagos, Ogun and Kaduna States.

“These graduating fellows have spent the past two years improving the academic outcomes of their pupils, igniting the love for learning in them, instilling self-belief and successfully galvanizing parental and community support to aid in pupils learning process,” she said.
Omikunle also harped on collaboration as a way to defeat social divide in education.