NIGERIA (Commonwealth Union) – Over the recent years, corruption has become widespread across Nigeria, with a significant increase in the number of cases being reported. Unfortunately, the education sector is now the latest victim of these forms of dishonest and fraudulent conduct.
There has always been a wealthy sector of any country who will grease whatever palms they have to in the hopes of making more money. But in the greasing of these palms the wealthy also make what is called donation which seem legitimate towards the government projects that are taking in place. Now the problem here is that there is not enough investment in the education sector and the sector in itself is failing to provide adequate education to the youth of the country.
As the ex-INEC chairman Attahiru Jega points out this will be the downfall of the nation. The main reason for this is that he feels the corruption has now come to ruin the education sector in Nigeria and this is putting Nigeria in dangerous waters where the future of the country in concerned.
If the education system in a country fails then the youth of the country more so the educated youth will leave the country to find better education opportunities. This ideally means that the educated population of the country will begin to dwindle.
Jega made no mistake in saying that the corruption of the country will be the reason for its downfall as the education sector was the first to get affected by it. For Nigeria to further develop as a nation there has to be substantial development in its education sector. This is what Jega has been trying to explain.
The 4th National Summit on Diminishing Corruption was held in Abuja earlier this week. Mr. Jega was the keynote speaker at this summit and it was here that he made the statement of the need for the education sector to be developed.
“The corruption that takes place within the education sector is a dwarf mirror image of what happens in the wider Nigerian context, albeit to a lesser extent but with comparatively more consequences. Nonetheless, it is significant enough to attract serious attention and appropriate mitigation measures, in any case, fighting corruption and eliminating it from the Nigerian public sector generally, and the education sector, in particular, is a task that must be done,” he said. “All hands need to be on deck for the successful accomplishment of this task.”
