According to official figures there are over 7 million Nigerian children that have no access to education in the country. That must be a joke. Oby Ezekwesili put the figure at 23 million when she was minister in charge of the education ministry. That appears to be more realistic. Authoritative but external sources, however, put the figure at about 30 million. This looks more like it. Which ever figure we choose as our benchmark the fact remains that Nigeria harbours about one tenth of the world’s uneducated children! That is a frightening and shocking statistic.  

A few years ago, in reviewing the state of education in Nigeria and in x-raying the impact of JAMB examination on admission into Nigerian universities, Dr. Ezekwesili captured the situation perfectly when she described it as a ‘bottleneck’. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Nigerian students graduating from secondary school and seeking to gain admission into Universities converge at the point of entry into university - JAMB. Only a very small fraction manages to trickle through the ‘needle’s eye’. The vast majority are left to languish at the bottleneck where they often spend several more fruitless years in the quest to gain admission. We do not need to look too far for the social and economic effect of this stranglehold on country to hit us in the face. The massive increase in the incidences of violent crimes and conduct characterised by drug abuse, prostitution, thuggery, kidnappings, armed robbery and other such vices that have bedevilled the country bear ample testimony. The impact on society of this army of youngsters, unfulfilled, unemployed, diseased, poor, uneducated and unengaged, replicated in several developing countries around the world, does not go unnoticed. The havoc they wreak has resulted in the United Nations, in 2000 or so, according education of the world’s children for the first time the second highest priority position in its Millennium Development Goal Project.  The goal is to eradicate, amongst other things, the scourge of illiteracy in the world by the year 2015. Since then, unfortunately, Nigeria remains one of the few countries in the world that will not meet the projected target. Indeed, it is one of the few countries where the impact of the MDG project has hardly made a dent on the country despite the best efforts and huge resources thrown at it.

In the past few years, a few State governments, including Lagos and Osun States, have introduced a ‘one meal a day’ food program for primary school students designed to entice the poorest amongst them to attend school and to keep them there. Although the programme has been relatively successful there is still a lot more to be done to meet the goal of education for all, including improving the quality of education in the public schools and providing for them options of a life-after-secondary school that would engage them and reduce the traffic congestion at the bottleneck. That is why the issue of middle-level manpower education through Mono- and Polytechnics is essential. That’s also why the issue of vocational schools like the technical colleges is also very important.  

Having said that, one other very significant area of engaging the youths, particularly after secondary school, that is increasingly attracting global attention and study, is the area of sport and the sports business. Sport is fun and a passion of the youths. It is an invaluable promoter of health and moral values. It provides a unique platform for social interaction and human integration. These days it provides opportunities for those that excel in its practise to become successful, rich, powerful and famous. The beneficiaries include the sports stars, managers, trainers, coaches, sports medicine practitioners, psychologists, exercise physiologists, physiotherapists, masseurs, scouts, lawyers, travel agents, facilities contractors and managers, security personnel, sports media personnel, broadcasters, events managers, insurance managers, maintenance personnel, venue managers, promoters, and so on! The sports industry has become such a huge global phenomenon that the world is struggling to keep pace with its growth. It is undoubtedly one of the fastest growing industries in the world and will, for many decades to come, engage and employ the youths in all parts of the world. It is the power of the followership of sport that has brought the United Nations to this point where football is being introduced now as a very useful tool to drive education for all within the Millennium Development Goal Project of the United Nations.

Education for all is critical for the future and security of the world with its millions of uneducated, poor, unengaged youths that are resorting to militancy, vandalism, kidnappings, political thuggery, terrorism, piracy, armed robbery, drug trafficking, prostitution, human trafficking, etc to engage their wandering minds. The children of the world will be deeply involved in shaping the future of mankind. There are two choices open to humanity NOW – to engage them in productive activity like sports whilst giving them the needed education, or to leave them to the vagaries of life at the bottleneck where the devil will find ample time, space and opportunity to turn them into agents of destruction!  

This past week a delegation from ‘One Goal – Education for All’ project came to Nigeria from the UK, as forerunners of a campaign to use the several football competitions around the world in the next one year to drive the global campaign. The group (I have written about them sometime in the past) with headquarters in South Africa and funded by some Western Governments wants to use the opportunity of the Under-17 FIFA championship, the African Cup of Nations and the FIFA World Cup, to escalate the global campaign in the continent. The Governments of the different countries are expected to endorse the campaign and to follow up with specific programmes in conjunction with civil society groups, NGOs and other agencies after the championships to make it happen. The masses are expected to sign unto the campaign through SMS messaging and via internet. A fraction of the 4 billion people around the world that will be watching the global football championships from the Under-17 championship through the African Cup of Nations to the World Cup in 2010 will galvanise governments to take action and save the world!    

Africa remains the world‘s focus and Nigeria the centrifugal force to set an example for the rest of the continent. In organising a championship to celebrate football for under-17s, FIFA inadvertently has designed a championship meant for those that ought to be in secondary schools if every child in the world were to have access to formal education.  Nigeria and several third world countries are faced with the serious matter of age-cheats in their teams making inauthentic the championship and nonsense of the objectives for establishing it. It is universal that at under-17 a child should still be in school. Wherever you, therefore, find footballers representing their country at under-17 level and have left school, or have completed their secondary school education, or are playing professional football, such a group must have some big question mark of credibility hanging around their neck! Such a group will be denying its youth the opportunity to benefit from FIFA’s football development programme and also mortgaging their future. The Under-17 championship provides the perfect platform for Nigeria to lead the charge to clean up the championship, make all participants in the under-17 category to be drawn only from secondary school! The effect will be that the millions of children that want to ride on the platform of football to become rich and famous must do so from the foundation of school and education. That way football and education will grow hand and hand. This must be Nigeria’s legacy project to sustain after the champion and to justify hosting the under-17 championship something the country has failed to do up till now – find justification to host!  Using the passion of the youth to drive the campaign for global education for all children is one campaign that everyone must buy into when the time comes!

segunodegbami@hotmail.com