Former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi has lashed out at President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over his decision to award scholarships to students in the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia, branding the move a “betrayal of the Nigerian child” as schools across the country face prolonged shutdowns and educational decay.
In a statement released Wednesday via his verified Facebook page, Obi criticized the Tinubu administration for what he called a glaring case of misplaced priorities, accusing the president of neglecting Nigeria’s pressing domestic education challenges in favor of international optics.
“I have consistently maintained that our underdevelopment is due to leadership failure,” Obi wrote, voicing frustration over what he sees as systemic negligence and an alarming disregard for the welfare of Nigerian students.
The former Anambra State governor highlighted the irony in Tinubu’s gesture, noting that while Nigeria holds the grim title of having the highest number of out-of-school children globally—nearly 20 million, according to UNICEF—the president was busy extending scholarships abroad.
“It is heartbreaking that our President, who is the leader of a country with the highest number of out-of-school children in the world and with the students in the capital of his own nation Abuja presently not attending schools, would travel to St. Lucia and offer scholarships to children there, while his own country’s education system is in ruins,” Obi said.
Obi emphasized that public schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have been shuttered for months, painting a stark picture of the situation back home while questioning the rationale behind gifting educational opportunities abroad.
“This is not leadership. It is negligence at its peak. It is an act of betrayal against the Nigerian child.”
Backing his claims with hard data, Obi compared Nigeria’s developmental indicators with those of St. Lucia:
Literacy Rate: Nigeria lags at under 60%, compared to over 90% in St. Lucia.
Life Expectancy: Nigeria’s average is 54 years, among the world’s lowest, while St. Lucia boasts over 72 years.
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Human Development Index (HDI): Nigeria ranks 161st out of 193 nations, placing it in the low development category. St. Lucia, by contrast, is in the high category.
“So tell me, what sense does it make that a president of a country with such terrible and dire statistics would travel to a country with better indexes of development—especially in education—and still offer them scholarships funded by Nigerian taxpayers, when Nigerian children are largely out of school and the teachers not yet paid for months?” Obi questioned.
He concluded with a strong message, calling on Nigerians to demand accountability and prioritize national development.
“Mr. President, by offering St. Lucia students a scholarship, shows he knows how important education is—while depriving Nigerian students of the same access to education.”
“We must, as a nation, reject these continued normalisations of misplaced priorities and build a better nation for us and our children,” he said.
The controversy comes amid growing concerns over the state of Nigeria’s education sector, teacher strikes, and dwindling public investment—highlighting what many critics see as a widening disconnect between leadership decisions and national realities.