Former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, has declared that President Bola Tinubu and other political leaders lack the moral right to celebrate Nigerian children on Children’s Day while failing to protect them from widespread insecurity and abductions.
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In a strongly worded statement released on Tuesday to mark the annual celebration, Ezekwesili warned the President, state governors, and lawmakers against issuing customary, performative messages.
“A warning to President Bola Tinubu, the Nigerian government, the national assembly, the Senate, the House of Representatives, Governors’ Forum, State Houses of Assembly, and the Nigerian political class at large:
Do not dare wish our children ‘happy Children’s Day’ today. To the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Vice President, the Governors of the 36 States, the Federal Executive Council, the Members of the National Assembly, the State Houses of Assembly, and the entire political class that has captured and destroyed the Nigerian State:
Do not dare. Do not dare open your mouths on May 27 to wish Nigerian children a ‘Happy Children’s Day.’”
Do not dare release the recycled, ghost-written platitudes your media handlers have already drafted.
Do not dare stand in front of cameras, surrounded by carefully arranged children in matching uniforms, to perform a tenderness you have never extended to the millions of Nigerian children you have abandoned, betrayed, and condemned to lives of suffering.’”
According to Ezekwesili, Nigerian leaders have forfeited every moral justification to celebrate children while insecurity continues to ravage schools and communities nationwide.
“‘You have no moral standing to wish anything to Nigerian children. None. Consider what you are dishonourably wishing them,’” she stated.
The former minister cited multiple cases of mass abductions of schoolchildren across the country, accusing the government of normalising terror attacks on schools.
But their parents, who gave birth to them, continue to grieve and daily rain curses on the evil leaders that have shown no empathy towards them and their abducted daughters.’”
She also mentioned victims from Dapchi, Kankara, Kagara, Jangebe, Afaka, Greenfield, Bethel Baptist and Tegina, saying Nigeria had become numb to repeated tragedies involving children.
“‘You are wishing ‘Happy Children’s Day’ to the children of Dapchi, Kankara, Kagara, Jangebe, Afaka, Greenfield, Bethel Baptist, Tegina and to the many whose abductions never made the headlines because Nigeria had run out of capacity to grieve.
You are wishing ‘Happy Children’s Day’ to the at least 1,799 students seized in a dozen of the largest abductions since Chibok, and to the 670 children affected by at least 10 school kidnappings in less than two years — a litany of horror compiled not by your security agencies, but by international human rights organisations doing the work your government refuses to do.’”
She concluded with a sharp challenge to the political class, stating that if the President, state governors, and other leaders choose to address the nation on Children’s Day, they must honestly confront their own shortcomings and openly admit to the public that they have failed Nigerian children.
‘’ Account for the public budgets that have not guaranteed the Nigerian children safety in their schools nor better education, health, and social protection. Tell us the names and current locations of every single child still in captivity – the Chibok girls, the Kebbi girls, the Niger State children, the Oyo children, and every other.
Tell the parents of these children exactly what your government has done and not done in the days, weeks, months, and years since each abduction.
Publish the audited figures on out-of-school children, on stunting, on learning poverty, on child mortality. Tell us what specific, measurable, time-bound commitments you are making – not in 2030, not in some imaginary future, but this fiscal year – to end the abandonment and to make Nigerian schools safe.
Anything short of that is a desecration of the Children’s Day and constitutes a fresh wound on the badly scared soul of every Nigerian child.
A government that cannot protect its children has forfeited the right to celebrate them. A political class that has built its wealth on the broken backs of the poor has forfeited the right to address their children with affection. There is no moral universe in which the architects of this abandonment may also serve as its celebrants.
To Nigerian children: Some of us see you. The Nigeria you deserve is a country in which you are safe, educated, fed, healed, free to dream and work hard to be the best of any thing you choose to become in this world. We will not stop to stand with you and for you. The shame of May 27, 2026 belongs not to you, but to those who have governed you into this tragic condition.
Again, to President Tinubu and the rest of his ilk in Nigeria’s political class- who have sworn to a covenant of watching unconcerned that our children are abducted and their teachers killed- be silent on this day.
You have not earned the right to speak to our children today.
Don’t you dare. Period” she said
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