As part of efforts to enhance Nigeria’s education education system, an academic don at the Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan, Professor Osifunke Ekundayo, has made a passionate call to action in a bid to provide free, accessible, and quality primary education to all children.
Her call was contained in her inaugural address titled “Right Not Privilege: No Child Should Be Left Behind,” delivered at the 580th Inaugural lecture of the premier university held at the Trenchard Hall, on Thursday, May 15
Speaking under the theme “Speaking Up for the Numerous Voiceless Children Shut Out of School in Nigeria: An Endless Odyssey,” Professor Ekundayo drew from personal encounters, extensive legal research, and international human rights frameworks to spotlight what she described as “a national emergency” that has robbed millions of Nigerian children of their fundamental right to education.
Professor Ekundayo’s journey into the legal and social dimensions of Nigeria’s out-of-school children began with two encounters in 2011 that deeply moved her.
The first was with Lola, a ten-year-old girl absent from school because her mother could not afford to pay a fee for materials. When she confronted the mother with the law mandating compulsory primary education, the woman replied, “Since you are a lawyer, you’ll defend me. That encounter jolted me,” Professor Ekundayo recalled.
“It brought home the truth that unless education is truly free, without hidden or indirect costs, millions of poor children will continue to be locked out of classrooms,” she narrated.
The second was Peter, a six-year-old boy who told her he was “pursued” from school because of unpaid fees. “That word, ‘pursued’, resonated with violence and exclusion. What does it say about a country where a child is chased away from education?” she queried.
Professor Ekundayo emphasized that education is not just a human right, but a gateway to all other rights. Quoting the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), she described education as both an “empowerment” and “multiplier” right that enables individuals to claim and exercise other rights.
However, despite constitutional provisions and laws like the Universal Basic Education Act of 2004 and the Child Rights Act of 2003, she noted, education in Nigeria is not justiciable; meaning it cannot be enforced in court because it falls under the non-justiciable “Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy” in the 1999 Constitution.
“This is the tragic paradox, our laws promise free and compulsory education, yet those promises are not legally binding. They are aspirations, not rights,” she lamented.
Professor Ekundayo lamented that Nigeria holds the ignoble distinction of having the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, which according to her accounts for an estimated 10.2 million.
I’m her words: “That’s one in every five out-of-school children globally. This is not a statistic; it is a humanitarian crisis.”
She outlined several key barriers: poverty, decaying infrastructure, underqualified teachers, internal conflicts, cultural practices, low budgetary allocations, and international debt obligations that limit domestic spending on education stressing that both corruption and legal loopholes have further compound the situation.
While referencing numerous international treaties including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Professor Ekundayo noted that Nigeria is bound under international law to provide free and compulsory primary education.
“The language of these instruments is obligatory, not optional. The failure to fulfill these commitments constitutes a breach of international law,” she declared.
She also pointed to more recent judicial activism, such as the ECOWAS Court ruling in SERAP v. Federal Government of Nigeria & UBEC, and the Federal High Court’s decision in LEDAP v. Federal Ministry of Education, which recognize the enforceability of education rights under certain conditions.
She said: “These judgments represent a glimmer of hope but they must be backed by legislative reform to make education a substantive right under the Constitution.”
Professor Ekundayo traced Nigeria’s history of free education efforts, from the Western Region’s 1955 initiative to the Universal Primary Education (UPE) scheme of 1976, and finally the Universal Basic Education (UBE) program launched in 1999.
She asserted however, that while all were ambitious in scope, each fell short due to poor implementation, political instability, and economic downturns.
“I am a product of the free primary education of the 1960s. Not once do I remember a child being sent home for unpaid fees. But today, that has become the norm rather than the exception,” Professor Ekundayo added.
Using the UN’s 4A framework—Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability, and Adaptability, Professor Ekundayo argued that education policy must be measured not just by promises, but by results.
Professor Ekundayo explained in her concluding part of the lecture with a compelling plea for constitutional reform, better funding, stronger international partnerships, and civil society advocacy.
“Education must be free. It must be compulsory. It must be justiciable,” she asserted. “A country that chases its children away from school is chasing away its future,” She appealed.
Quoting former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, she reiterated, “When Kenya made primary education free, over a million children showed up at school the next week. That is the power of removing barriers.”
She urged Nigerian lawmakers, civil society, and the international community to act decisively saying “If we don’t act now, the odyssey of Nigeria’s voiceless children will remain endless.”
Speaking in a similar vein, another legal expert at the Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan, Barrister Biodun Adediran Olatunji SAN, stated that a country without steady and heavy investment in education could not attain meaningful development in any form.
The lawyer cum university lecturer maintained that previous administrations in Nigeria shied away from investment in education of the Nigerian children leading to its current poor state in the country drawing an instance from the recently released result by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
“The recent JAMB result is a testimony and a wake up call to all the stakeholders that we need to focus on the education of our children and the future of Nigeria as a whole,” Barrister Olatunji said.
He however called on wealthy individuals not to ignore the situation and leave it to government alone to address. He also called on private school owners to ensure strict compliance with education standards in line with global best practice insisting on investment in education infrastructure, scholarships for talented but less privileged, saying “how far any country would go depends on the amount of its investment in quality education.”