The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25, 2023 polls in Nigeria, Peter Obi, has that henceforth Nigeria needs leaders with educational certificates that are undoubted and those who know their classmates.
The former Anambra State Governor spoke at the graduation of students of Pacesetters Academy on Saturday in Abuja.
Obi, who delivered the keynote address, said without education and educated leaders, there cannot be meaningful development.
He said: “In the next Nigeria, you will not be a leader unless you attended a school, unless you know your classmates, unless you have a good certificate, whereby if you bring your certificate, nobody will doubt it.
“For me, education is the most important thing that any nation needs.
“What differentiates developed and underdeveloped is education.
“It is the foundation.
“Even when you go out and people tell you about measures of development being hinged on the human development index and they tell you it is education, health and per capital income, I will tell you that of all these three, health is about education, if you don’t have a well-educated society, you can’t have a healthy society.
“You can’t put people out of poverty without education.
“The more people are educated, the more they pull themselves out of poverty and that is critical.
“And you can’t do that unless you invest in education.
“The more people are educated, the more they put themselves out of poverty and that is critical.
“You can’t have 20 million out-of-school children and think of development tomorrow.
“We must have to invest in education.
“If you follow 2022 world population of countries, the population of Norway, the population of Iceland, the population of Singapore and the population of Dubai, if you put the population of these big successful countries together, we are talking of a population of 19.7 million and we are talking of 20 million out-of-school children, so we are more than population of these four successful, thriving, respectable developed countries put together out of school.
“So imagine what it will be if we invest in education.
“So investment in education is critical.
“We will invest in public schools.
“Nigeria is a country that says they have universal basic education.
“As a governor of Anambra State, I did not have what we called private schools or public schools because the children are not private, they remain our own children.
“So when people tell me about private schools, I would say well, it doesn’t matter to me.
“We now equipped public schools with computers.
“When I gave it to them, I gave it to private schools as well.”
“So for me, if I have the opportunity, education will have the highest amount in our budget and our teachers will be celebrated because the most critical components of education are the teachers.
“They are the ones that our children will take after, they are the ones that talk about discipline, but today, we are not celebrating them.
“Nobody celebrates them, but we are busy celebrating and giving national awards to those who have stolen the country dry.
“We’re busy giving awards to those who should not be part of us.
“And we are not celebrating the teachers.
“Things have to change.
“Do not be discouraged because people don’t regard or celebrate you.
“Know that what you are doing is noble.
“It is important for the society.
“We can’t have change unless we have people with the right character.
“We can’t have change unless we have people with the right behaviour.
“We can’t have change unless we have people with the right discipline.
“As you move to the next stage, know that we want you to be in a different Nigeria, we want you to be part of Nigeria where people who are dropouts will come back to be part of the new Nigeria.
“Know that the only certificate, the only thing you need is good education.
“To remain a good person, remain a disciplined person, remain truthful, and always do the right thing.
“It is easy to say that only bad people succeed in Nigeria, but please, do not be part of them.
“That is what we are trying to change.”
In his welcome address, the Chairman of Pacesetters Schools, Abuja, Kenneth Imansuangbon, tasked the graduands to always strive to be good ambassadors of the school.
Imansuangbon said: “We have trained them well.
“They should go out and represent the country as ambassadors.
“They are the future of Nigeria.
“Nigeria needs change and I believe the training they have received puts them in a better position to represent this country because they are the future of Nigeria.”
