Former Nigerian Minister of Education, Obiageli Ezekwesili, has said that no single government can solve all of the country’s problems alone. Ezekwesili is the convener of FixPolitics and the founder of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance. She noted that citizens must be active participants in the process of solving problems in society, while speaking during a visit by her team at the Human Capital Africa (HCA) to Not Forgotten Initiative School, a non-profit school in Abuja, set up to provide free access to education.

As part of activities to mark Ezekwesili’s 60th birthday, the HCA donated N2 million and adopted the school for intervention programmes. Ezekwesili praised the founder of the school, Tosin Adeniyi, for the initiative which she sees as part of efforts to reduce the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria. She lamented that the classic failure in governance creates situations where citizens must play their own role in developing society.

According to Ezekwesili, the needs of society are too numerous and humongous, and even the best government acting alone would not be able to solve all of them. Hence, all citizens must be part of the process of solving problems in society. Ezekwesili sees the school initiative as an example of how government can help to solve the problem of out-of-school children in Nigeria. She believes that if the government adopts a similar programme, the children in the school will learn literacy and numeracy skills, which are major challenges in the education sector.

In her remarks, Adeniyi called on the government to make education accessible to every child and provide adequate supervision to prevent failure. Not Forgotten Initiative School currently has 85 students, 27 of whom are on scholarships, 10 in a federal government college and about four in the university.,

Finally it is essential that the government takes education seriously and ensures that every child has access to it, as education is one of the keys to unlocking a brighter future for Nigeria.