We cannot afford to fail Nigerian children – Atiku

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of Nigeria, and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 election, on Tuesday joins other well-meaning citizens to congratulate Nigerian children on the occasion of Children’s Day which holds on Wednesday across the country as in other parts of the world.

Atiku Abubakar in a statement by his media office in Abuja on Wednesday, indicate: “it is incumbent on us as a society to ensure that they (children) attain their full potential in life.”

The former Vice President expressed regrets and disappointments that efforts to make life easy and better for the children are yielding abysmal results in Nigeria. This, he noted, has not been helped by the ongoing global pandemic ravaging the world, and which has caused many schools to be partially or completely shut down as the world struggles to curtail the spread and find a cure to the deadly coronavirus disease otherwise, known as Covid-19.

The former Vice President recalled a report released in March 2021, by Save the Children Network, which stated that: “children across the world have lost an average of one-third (74 days) of education each due to school closure and lack of access to remote learning” and also corroborated by UNESCO findings, which concluded: “close to half the world’s students are out of school worldwide due to partial or full school closures linked to the coronavirus pandemic”.

According to Atiku Abubakar, these are not good or encouraging statistics, but reckoned, it is a reminder that a lot of work is needed in this direction to mitigate both the immediate and long-term adverse effects of the coronavirus pandemic on education in all facets but most importantly, those of children.

The Waziri Adamawa went further to say that education is the bedrock of any society, and the pandemic is a wake-up call on administrators and leaders at all levels to do more, by putting in place infrastructure, and making available learning materials in institutions of learning.

The former Vice President noted that the onus is on leaders to create a safe environment for the little ones, and it is the duty of parents to inculcate in children good behavior and instill in them, high moral values.

The Waziri of Adamawa concluded by congratulating the children on this memorable day set aside to celebrate them, urging them to be good ambassadors of their parents and country wherever they may be, and wishing them success in their chosen careers and future endeavors.