Peter Obi, former Anambra Governor and Labour Party chieftain, has berated President Bola Tinubu as an irresponsible leader for offering scholarships to St. Lucian students to study in Nigerian universities, while schools in Abuja remain on strike and about 20 million Nigerian children are out of school.

In a statement on Wednesday, Mr Obi took a swipe at Mr Tinubu, adding that Nigeria’s “underdevelopment is due to leadership failure.”

“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, and even currently his nation’s capital, the Federal Capital Territory, the supposed seat of governance, have public schools shut down and closed for months,” Mr. Obi said.

He added, “This is not leadership, it is negligence at its peak. It is an act of betrayal against the Nigerian child.”

Lamenting the alarming number of out-of-school children in Nigeria, Mr Obi compared Nigeria’s Human Development Index to that of St. Lucia, asking, “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 Nigeria[n] children are largely out of school and the teachers not yet paid for months?”

“Nigeria has approximately 20 million children out of school, according to UNICEF, the highest number globally, with a literacy rate of under 60%, far below the global average of 87%. Similarly, the life expectancy stands at a mere 54 years, out of the global average measurement of above 70 years, one of the lowest in the world,” Mr. Obi said.

He added, “On Human Development Index (HDI), which is the most critical measure of development, Nigeria is ranked in the ‘Low Category’ at 161 out of 193 countries measured, while St. Lucia, a Caribbean nation, has a literacy rate of over 90%, which is above the global average of 87%.”

Mr Obi’s outburst followed Mr Tinubu’s scholarship offer to students from St. Lucia and other Caribbean countries to study in Nigerian universities.

Mr Tinubu, during his trip to St. Lucia, announced that “the scholarship programme for students from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) to study in Nigerian universities will commence in the next academic year.”

Mr Tinubu’s scholarship offer coincides with the prevailing, unprecedented economic hardship, high cost of living, and rising poverty resulting from his economic policies.