In the heart of Africa’s most populous nation, a silent emergency is unfolding.
It’s not a war, yet millions are casualties. It’s not a natural disaster, but the damage is catastrophic.
It is the collapse of Nigeria’s educational system — and our children are its victims.
- Across the country, schools lie in ruins.
- Classrooms without chairs,
- libraries without books,
- buildings without roofs.
In some places, the only thing standing is hope — fragile and fading.
Over 20 million Nigerian children are out of school, not because they don’t want to learn, but because the system has failed them.
- Once, education was a ladder — a path out of poverty, a key to unlocking the future.
- Today, that ladder is broken. There is no school feeding program for the hungry child.
- There are no philanthropists rising to fill the gap.
- Government intervention is inconsistent at best, indifferent at worst.
- Mercy is in short supply, and love for the Nigerian child seems to have gone extinct.
In the absence of education, crime becomes the only curriculum.
Idle hands, driven by hunger and hopelessness, become tools for destruction.
The rise in kidnapping, cybercrime, cultism, and violence among Nigerian youth is not just a moral failure — it is a systemic one. We sowed neglect; we are reaping chaos.
Our children wander the streets during school hours, hawking sachet water and peanuts when they should be holding pencils and textbooks. Their eyes, once filled with dreams, are now dulled by the weight of survival. Without education, the future becomes a graveyard of potential. We are burying tomorrow — one out-of-school child at a time. Cry for my beloved country!
This is a cry for help.
Not just from the children, but from a nation bleeding at its foundations.
The walls of our education system are broken, and if we don’t rebuild them urgently, the entire structure of society will collapse.
We must act. Governments at all levels must prioritize education beyond slogans and summits. We need emergency interventions: school rehabilitation, feeding programs, provision of books and learning materials, and support for teachers who have become disillusioned. Philanthropists, NGOs, and the private sector must see education not as charity but as investment — the only one that guarantees a stable, secure, and prosperous Nigeria.
Let us not keep suffering and smiling.
Let us rise, speak, act, and rescue the soul of our nation — one child, one school, one book at a time. For when we save education, we save everything. #EducationCrisis
#NigerianChildrenDeserveBetter
By Dr. Ben Attah