Late literary icon, Professor Chinua Achebe, in his influential book “The Trouble with Nigeria,” identified failure of leadership as the singular core problem of Nigeria. Achebe in his 68-page book first published in 1983 by Fourth Dimension Publishers argued that nothing is wrong with the Nigerian land, air, climate or the average character of the Nigerian citizens, rather, leaders are unwilling or unable to rise to the responsibility of true leadership.
At the time of writing the book, the author identified the major problems of Nigerian leadership as bad leadership, corruption, tribalism and nepotism, cult of mediocrity, lack of patriotism and indiscipline. The book predicted the military coup of December 1983 that cut short Nigeria’s Second Republic.
This was followed by an aborted Third Republic in Nigeria, which ended with the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election by military junta, General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd.) MKO Abiola was widely thought to have won the annulled election. The country later overcame the crisis that followed the election and moved on.
Although we have had 27 years of uninterrupted democracy since the beginning of the present Fourth Republic in 1999, the leadership failures Achebe identified 43 years ago are still rampant today. Our situation has been further compounded by the hypocrisy of the contemporary Nigerian leadership. Leadership hypocrisy is bad because it destroys public trust, creates double standards and hurts people.
One of the most glaring examples of modern Nigerian leadership double standards is the way our political leaders shamelessly celebrate the academic achievements of their children abroad. As our reference point, we will use two high-profile politicians in Nigeria who recently celebrated the graduation of their daughters from universities in the United Kingdom (UK).
There was the controversial Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, who rolled out the drums to celebrate the graduation of his daughter from the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. Wike, a former Governor of Rivers State, hosted friends and family to a dinner in the UK in honour of his daughter, who bagged a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Southampton. Photos of the event were published by the media and credited to his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media, Lere Olayinka.
Few days after Wike celebrated the graduation of his daughter, the Governor of Anambra State, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, celebrated the graduation of his daughter, Oduko Soludo, from the University of Nottingham, with a First Class Honours degree in Neuroscience. Oduko was in a convocation ceremony with Professor Soludo, his wife Nonye Soludo and other family members.
Let’s see the cost of studying in these two universities in the United Kingdom. According to information in public domain, an international student pays about £24,000 a year to study law in the University of Southampton. If nothing unusual occurs, it takes three years to study for a law degree in the university. The total cost of studying law at the University of Southampton will be £72,000 (approx N131 million).
By inference, the amount Wike spent on getting his daughter a law degree in the UK is more than the amount he earned as the Governor of Rivers State for eight years and his earnings so far as a Minister in the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) says the total annual package of each of the 36 state governors in Nigeria is N11, 540,896. This is inclusive of basic salary, normal statutory allowances and packages. So a former Governor like Wike who served the constitutionally mandated two terms of four years each, earned about N92.3 million in eight years.
RMAFC said a substantive Federal Minister in Nigeria like Wike earns a total regular package of N7, 801,640. By August 21 this year, Wike would have spent three years as a Minister. If we should add his August salary, it means that he has earned about N23.4 million since his assumption of office as Minister of FCT. If we add his earnings as a governor and his earnings so far as a Minister, it will sum up to N115.7 million, which is still N15.3 million less than the N131 million he paid for his daughter to get a law degree in University of Southampton.
Soludo’s daughter graduated from the University of Nottingham, and an international student at the university pays £33,000 a year to study Neuroscience. Unless there are unforeseen circumstances, a B.Sc. in Neuroscience at the university takes three years of full time study. Overall, it costs £99000 (N180 million) to get a B.Sc. in Neuroscience at the University of Nottingham.
Interestingly, Soludo stated during his second anniversary as Governor of Anambra State in March 2024 that he had not collected any salary since he assumed office on the 17th of March, 2022. If that were really the case, how did he manage to pay N180 million for his daughter to get University of Nottingham degree in Neuroscience?
Ironically, those who send their children to study abroad are the same people who pay lip service to developing education in Nigeria. For instance, Wike had, on several occasions, boasted publicly that the state had never allocated less than 30 percent for education during his years as the Governor of Rivers State.
But official figures show that during his presidency, education allocations were about 20 percent of the total budget. For instance, his government allocated N49.471 billion to education in the 2020 budget (representing 20 percent of the total budge), which his administration at the time cited as the highest allocation to education.
If Wike really invested in education during his time as the Governor of Rivers State, why didn’t he send his daughter to the Rivers State University, his own alma mater where he got his law degree? The Rivers State University Faculty of Law is 45 years. Founded in 1981, a year after the birth of the university. “This is unbelievable that after all the “massive” investment in education during Wike’s era as the Governor of Rivers State, the university cannot provide quality legal education.
Soludo’s case is baffling. Why did I say that? He attained the rank of Professor in the Nigerian university system in his thirties and was a consultant to the World Bank before opting to serve in the public service first as the Chief Economic Adviser to the President and subsequently, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). So, I don’t think there is any Governor in Nigeria who is better positioned to know the importance of education than him.
The Professor of Economics, while campaigning for the office of the Governor of Anambra State in 2021, had promised to make Anambra State the “Dubai-Taiwan of Nigeria.” But when it was becoming clear that his promise of making Anambra Dubai-Taiwan in his first four-year tenure was a pipe-dream, he recanted that he never meant building skyscrapers everywhere. He said the road to the destination was access to quality education. To date, he has not backed up his words with action.
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Soludo said the 2026 Appropriation Law of Anambra State allocated almost 50 percent of the total budget of N757 billion to education, which he said is far above the 15 to 20 percent recommendation made by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). With five months to the end of this fiscal year, there is nothing on ground in Anambra State to show for the humongous allocation to education in the budget.
Lecturers in the Anambra State owned Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU) remain among the least paid academic staff in the Nigerian university system. I leave it for another day to discuss it.
Often, it is the same people in government that shed crocodile tears about the billions of dollars and pounds that Nigeria loses annually as a result of education tourism abroad, while sending their children to study in very expensive foreign universities, without paying attention to our university system. What do they expect from us, the followers, when our leaders do not have faith in the institutions within the country?
Today, Nigeria has about 312 universities. The breakdown is 168 private universities, 77 federal universities and 67 state universities. Some Nigerian universities are making some good headway. Nigeria is the most represented country in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Times Higher Education Ranking for 2026, with a record 24 Nigerian universities making this year’s ranking.
Unfortunately our leaders do not appreciate what they have. They prefer sending their children abroad to study, while reserving for them at home the best job placements in choice government establishments such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), Bank of Industry (BOI) and Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), among others.
The unfortunate graduates of Nigerian universities still roam the streets jobless. To add insult to injury, the same politicians who abandoned our education system to rot, often turn around to accuse Nigerian graduates of being unemployable. What other double jeopardy is there?
But I do not intend to hold the whole political class in Nigeria responsible for the mistake of the majority among them. There have been a few exceptions for Nigerians. For instance, Senator Chris Ngige, the then Minister of Labour and Employment, celebrated the graduation of three of his children from Nigerian universities during the tenure of the late President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Dr. Ngige’s children, two males and a female, are reading medicine like their parent. The former Governor of Anambra State was at loggerheads with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) when he was the Minister of Labour and Employment, but the union commended him for believing in the Nigerian university system.
Similarly, the Governor of Osun State, Ademola Adeleke was recently seen celebrating the graduation of his daughter, Adebukola Josphine Adeleke who graduated with a degree in Mass Communication from Adeleke University, Ede Osun State. I therefore passionately appeal to the rest of the political class in Nigeria to emulate the example of their colleagues that have demonstrated their faith in Nigerian universities.
On another very sad note, as I round off this article, I read that the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, celebrated the graduation of his twin children from the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom. The same Umahi when he was the Governor of Ebonyi State spent billions of Naira from tax payers money to build a university in the State. The Federal Government took over the university and renamed it the David Umahi Federal University of Health Sciences, Ebonyi State (DUFUS). He avoided the university that bears his name to ensure his twin children attended Sheffield University.
Finally, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is known for making tough decisions. In the same way he removed the fraudulent subsidy regime that unfortunately made Nigeria the poverty capital of the world, let him initiate a law prohibiting political office holders in Nigeria from sending their children to study abroad. That is the only way they will give attention to education in Nigeria. They will pay for education when they know that their children will benefit from the system.
