Nigeria's Minister Exposes Why The World Makes Us Look Worse Than We Are - Tunji Alausa

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People have used bad data to conical Nigeria.
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Nigeria has only one of the highest number of after-school children in the world.
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Some data say 15 million or 70.5 million after-school children.
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But I can tell you today, we do not have 15 million after-school children.
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The UNICEF should not be giving us that data.
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We should be telling the world our own data.
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Dr. Tunji Alalsa, a physician and nephrologist by training, he built a medical career across Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States before entering public service, first as Minister of State for Health and now as Nigeria's Minister of Education.
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I have a president that wants to resolve this ASSU crisis that had lingered on in that country for over 40 years.
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And one unique thing that President Bola Meitunubo also did was that he said, I don't want any committee in between you and me.
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Go set up your committee to work with ASSU because I was meeting a president that's so in love with education.
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Even when I thought those requests were too much.
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much.
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Wait, which request did you think was too much?
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This Qatar increase in their salary of 40%.
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I thought it was too much.
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And then just looked over and said, yes, I'll pay it.
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It directed that all CIS fund by AFCC should be diverted.
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It's a lot of money.
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What's one thing Africa needs to stop waiting for the West to validate?
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Africa is the most continent that is positioned today to dominate the world.
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We have the population.
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The average age in Africa today is about 23 or 25 years.
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It's not the international community to quit laws.
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We have to fix our own problems.
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Some of the problems with these diasporians, they get abroad, they say to help with my country.
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We're missing out of big opportunities that are happening in Nigeria.
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My advice to you, come back home.
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Quick one, before we jump into the Afropolitan podcast, I have a problem.
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So my issue is that 72% of you are not subscribed to the Afropolitan podcast.
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So I need you to click the subscribe button so you can join the Afropolitan family.
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Now we can jump back to it.
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Honorable Mr.
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Welcome.
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So someone is going to click in your specific video.
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They may be winding down from a long day, or maybe they're on their way to work, or maybe they're getting a quick workout in.
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So the first thing I want you to tell the Afro-politan community is what is one of the biggest myths that people have about your job as Minister of Education?
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I'll tell you, thank you, Chika, for inviting me.
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And thank you, H.A., for inviting me to the Afropolitan podcast.
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Yes.
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The biggest myth, actually, when you say the doctors will say the beginning of wisdom is for you to fear the nurses.
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If you work in the medical field, you have to respect the nurses.
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In the education sector in Nigeria, I think the biggest myth was ASU.
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Why has this problem with HSU, the current strike, loss of continuation of in-art university system gone so long?
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It's been with us for over 40 years, if not more than 40 years.
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And when I came, they said,
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you have one major problem that you will not be able to summons.
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That was the chorus that everybody said, oh, they feel bad for me.
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It's a difficult job.
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But then President Bola Metinibu in his benevolence and his wisdom,
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Just after I was appointed, I think he had an interview with several editors.
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If I want to be specific about the time, I think it was December, around the holiday period in December, he had an editor group interview.
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And they asked him, he said something about, he will never give a job to somebody that he knows they can't perform the job.
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It wasn't referring to me, it was referring to all these cabinet ministers.
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So when I was going to the education ministry, people said, oh, ASU will be your biggest problem.
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But then, today, the rest is history.
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So I believe I've answered that question, what was the biggest myth?
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when I was assuming my job as Minister of Education for the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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And can you give more history around why did people think there was this problem that you had and basically just don't worry about it, like focus on other things?
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Why did people give you that context?
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The people were there.
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It was just because that particular problem had gone on for so long.
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And government would sit with HSU, the rich agreement with them.
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They won't meet the agreement.
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So over the past two, three decades, there had been a huge mistrust between the people
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in the academia and the government.
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And it wasn't as if government was a meeting of those obligations, but I believe it was just because they didn't focus on those terms of agreement.
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And after my first meeting with ASU, people told me, oh, they were demons.
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They wouldn't listen, they're rigid.
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But in life, I never prejudge anybody.
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I don't have any outer prejudice in me.
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I would sit with anybody and after a conversation, I would make up my mind the kind of person or the kind of people or the kind of group I'm meeting with.
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At my first meeting with the ASU executive, they kept good records.
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They came with their fries.
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I realized that they were good people.
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They've just been disappointed and bruised years over years.
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And the first thing I told them was that, listen, this government led by President Bola Mechun Numbu
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the government that believes in keeping the promises that the government has made.
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And most, when I say the government, it's still one person.
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President Bola Meitunumbu, the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the commander in chief.
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When it, one thing about him is that when you make promises, it keeps those promises.
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And I told them that the president believes so much in education and education
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More so, education as a bedrock of our development in any society.
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And we have a president today that now has fervent and benevolent belief in education.
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And the president also understands that as it advances, it's a $1 trillion economy.
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Moving Nigeria to a $1 trillion economy.
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In four years from now, it will need the manpower, skilled manpower to drive the agenda.
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And today, we're lucky in the education sector.
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The president has given us all the political will, the resources to drive his agenda, singular agenda of ensuring that every single Nigerian child has the best education that you can get anywhere in the world.
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And you've seen the transformation going on
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under the Renewed Up Agenda for Education, powered by ANESRI, Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative.
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I'll come back to your question about.
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When I sat with them, I said, we will discuss with you, Asu, mutual trust, respect, and honesty.
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We will not come and engage in bogus agreement with you.
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We would get into agreement that government
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can meet whatever argument we make with you.
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Those obligations will ensure that the obligations that government can meet
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not a bogus argument that we just sign and it will be put in the document.
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I said, please understand that clearly and let's seize on this opportunity.
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I have a president that wants to resolve this ASU crisis that had lingered on in that country for over 40 years, once and for all.
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and let both of us work together.
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And one unique thing that President Bola Metinubo also did was that he said, I don't want any committee in between you and me.
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Go set up your committee to work with ASU.
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Whatever you resolve, come to me.
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And I would decide what I can afford and what I can afford.
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And that made the job so easy.
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Because I was going to meet the president.
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And then I was meeting the president that's so in love with education.
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So whatever I went, even when I taught those requests were too much, the president would just look at my face and say, no, I'll do it.
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Wait, which request did you think was too much?
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When the Qatar Consolated Academic to Lailaouan's increase in their salary of 40%, I thought it was too much.
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But when I went to the president that this was what they were asking for, the president just looked over and said, yes, I'll pay it.
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It was as if I won a jackpot.
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I was about to run out of his office before he called me back.
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I didn't want him to call me back.
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I said, no, no, I changed my mind.
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So I said, no, no, no.
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As soon as I got there, I said, thank you, sir.
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I ran out.
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So I was looking at my back.
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Someone would say, oh, President wants you back.
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And when I got to my office, I couldn't, oh, this is it.
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But it wasn't something that I didn't expect.
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Because just yesterday, we had the Federal Executive Council meeting.
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The President came in and said,
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I would fund nail fund with every single money that I can get.
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And he said, he directed.
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that in general of the Federation, the Minister of Finance and myself, that all looted funds, all CIS funds by AFCC should be diverted to NERF funds.
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It's a lot of money.
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This is the kind of president we have.
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The president that has transformed the country in a way that we've never seen before.
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Every single sector,
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of Nigeria economy today has been transformed positively.
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Nigeria is going through a transformative renaissance.
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No doubt about that.
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I can tell you, economy is doing well.
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We recovered.
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We are not even in the door rooms again.
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We're fully recovered.
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We're moving at high speed.
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companies, more companies are declaring significant amount of profit today.
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These are data you can fact check me.
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Today, just this month, we had the highest FAC allocation shared between the three tiers of government that never before in each of my years.
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Can you say what FAC is just for audience?
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Federal Account Allocation Committee.
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That's a FAC.
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The Federal Account Allocation Committee
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is the committee responsible to put in all revenues of the government together.
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They'll divide it based on ratio.
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A certain percentage goes to the federal government, certain percentage go to the state government, and the third percentage goes to local government.
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If I can remember that correctly, I think federal government gets 52 percent of the total revenue that comes in, the FAC account for.
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Federal government gets 52 percent, the state government gets 28 percent, and I think local government 24 percent.
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I might be half by a few percentage there.
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For the first time in the history of our country, just this August of 2026,
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the government of Nigeria, the various entity that make up the government of Nigeria, the federal, the state, and the local government shared the highest allocation due to them ever.
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And as I was saying that again today, all sub-national government, all state governments
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are paying salaries.
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Before President Bola and Mertinubu took over, about 20 states were not meeting their obligations to pay their staff salaries.
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They were borrowing to pay staff salaries.
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Today, that's gone.
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So, just to put some of the things in context to you, how these countries change.
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If you were a business before President Bola Metinu came in, you had difficulty sourcing for forex.
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Today, that's gone.
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The ease of doing business is significantly better.
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It's so easier now.
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If you go to a port,
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Every congestion, the PAPA port had been built and Tinker Island port had been built in 1974.
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There had not been any significant rehabilitation done.
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This president has signed the approval to do that.
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Not just signed the approval, it's looked for funds to do that as well.
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You look at our headline inflation compared to 2025, with inflation rate at decline by almost 9.5% to be specific.
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Food prices are much cheaper, but are those prices where we want them to be?
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No, but the good thing is that it's the trajectory.
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That's what people should look at.
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Look at two years from 2023, May, when the president took over, month over month,
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significant improvement in the country.
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Security is better, but is it where we want it to be?
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No.
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But just yesterday, the president also approved the setting up of a security committee to draft a clear five-year security architecture for the country.
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You have a president that is so decisive
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in the way it's managing this country.
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So folk and so granular, this is president you can't lie to if you're serving on that stewardship.
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President wakes up in the morning, spends two and a half hours to read all Nigerian newspapers.
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That's how it started today.
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It's there.
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He reads every single Nigerian newspaper, all the editorials, all the comments.
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So he knows what is happening all around the country.
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He would even call you and say this and this and this.
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So as a minister, you have to be up on your game.
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You don't want the president calling you and telling you something about your ministry.
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And you're hearing it for the first time from the president.
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And a lot of ministers are falling into that situation.
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But I'm telling you all this to tell you the granularity in which President Bola Mechunubu brings to fall when it comes to managing and running this country.
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It's a president that just does this based on passion, his commitment to uplifting humanity.
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Sometimes I look at him and say, oh, this work is a lot of work for him.
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This person works almost 16 hours a day.
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But when you have this passion driving you, you won't even feel that it's work.
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The passion to ensure that every single Nigerian lead a better life and a good life.
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So you moved back to Nigeria for this particular role, right?
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And I think I want to peel this back for our audience.
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A lot of them are in the diaspora.
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And, you know, there's always conversations about what would it look like if they moved back and then, you know, helped in governments or helped in different sectors, right?
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Can you, from our perspective, say what are some of the things that personally shocked you that you were not aware of before when you started in the Minister of Education portfolio and also in the Minister of Health?
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Before you came in, you probably had an idea of saying, okay, maybe this is where it's at.
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And then when you were there, you're like, wow.
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Like, I didn't realize that it was either this bad or it's this good.
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Could you speak to some of those things?
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It's a very good question.
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And I'll tell you precisely, nothing shocked me.
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And let me tell you, I'll give that in pure context to you.
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And I'll use this opportunity to talk to the entire diaspora and population.
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This is the time to come back home.
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Nigeria is undergoing a positive transformation.
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It's a renaissance now.
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But me, to particularly be more specific to myself,
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I never detached myself from Nigeria.
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I was always coming back and forth.
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In fact, sometimes people told that I lived in Nigeria.
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When this current president was governor, I did a lot of work, not paid work, advisory work to the government of Lagos State.
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I made myself available because I'm from Lagos State, and I felt that I had to give back.
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to my people.
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I did a lot of free work in ed sector, in education sector, in other areas.
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In fact, when President was then, it's doing a first time as a governor of Lagos State, he met with a completely desecrated government in Lagos State.
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Nothing worked.
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But then that's a discussion for another time.
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All the hospitals lacked equipment.
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President with some of his childhood friend, Professor Amurow, Dr. Shonoke, and Dr. Lopopo.
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They grew up in Chicago.
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President went to Chicago State.
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Professor Amurow went to Illinois.
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Dr. Lopopo went to, I'm not sure if Dr. Lopopo went to Chicago State University like the president.
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So they adopted me as their little brother then.
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So I was the...
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Then we mobilized Cook County Hospital, the biggest public hospital, was closing.
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And I happened to be chief resident there, and I worked as an attending physician there.
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So the president used his old connection with the former mayor of Chicago, Mayor Daley, the chief of staff to Mayor Daley, Mr. Chuck.
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now ask them to give Lagos, to donate those equipment.
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Equipment worth tens of millions of dollars.
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So that was one of the big thing we did then.
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We got those equipment, we equipped most of the hospitals in Lagos State.
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But I'll tell you those discussion, the goodwill that went into it, was by the president.
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We just were there to facilitate.
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I just said that as a case and example of a lot of things that we did.
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I was part of to just provide my own support as Lagosian.
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Over the years, the president became my mentor.
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He was governor, my mentor, my father, my uncle.
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Whenever I needed any advice, even when I was doing my work, setting up my practice, I would latch on to him.
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Fast forward, the president said that he wants to be president of Nigeria.
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He just didn't wake up.
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He didn't wake up there.
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He knew this.
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Wait, what year was that?
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When he knew he wanted to be president.
253
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I can tell you when I knew president wanted to be president, I'll tell you the specific year.
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I'm good at dates now.
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He was sworn in in 1999 as governor of Lagos State.
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As that 2002, I'd heard that from him, that he wants to be president.
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And I'll tell you an incident that happened.
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They were meant to, the Lagos State government was invited to, I won't name the country, but it was a purely socialist state, country.
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The president said, no, I don't want to visit.
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He sent his people there.
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I don't want people to tag me as a socialist.
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Because one day, I want to be president of Nigeria.
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I don't want to be tagged as a socialist.
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That was how that conversation came, and I can tell you that was in 2002.
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Wow.
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So fast forward, it did everything.
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It's the way, look, I can't even begin to talk.
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Look at that, Equal Atlantic.
269
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It was a menace.
270
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It was garbage.
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It was garbage before flooding.
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The president turned it into what it is today, billions of dollars in value to Nigeria and to Lagos State.
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Now, fast forward.
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I'm very good at coming back, triangulating back.
275
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But I had to give you all the context.
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Fast forward now,
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When President said he was running.
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So now I'm in America.
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God has been kind to me.
280
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I had a fledging practice.
281
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I was doing so well.
282
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But so I said, if President wants, he wins.
283
00:21:08.986 --> 00:21:12.127
If President Bola Merton wins and becomes the president.
284
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I'll be the biggest hypocrite if I continue to stay in America.
285
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I knew one thing at the beginning of the campaign, and that it was, for example, I mentioned Bo Wins,
286
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As the president of Nigeria, if I stayed one day longer in America, then I'm not truthful to my words.
287
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I'd be the biggest hypocrite.
288
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So I knew I was going to come to Nigeria.
289
00:21:36.264 --> 00:21:39.746
But I didn't know of any rules that would come.
290
00:21:40.047 --> 00:21:41.027
Well, I just wanted to.
291
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My own thing was that, Mr. President, whatever, if you want me to just, just, whatever little advice I can give, I want to be part of it.
292
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If you just want me to carry your suitcase to the office in the morning, that's good enough for me.
293
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If you want me to just polish your shoes in the morning, that's good enough for me.
294
00:21:58.937 --> 00:22:03.819
But then President Torchit, in his own wisdom, made me Minister of State for Health.
295
00:22:04.519 --> 00:22:11.461
So I also had the opportunity, the privilege, of working as part of the Transitional Council on Health.
296
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So we had put up the entire
297
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agenda for the president.
298
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It wasn't really something that was new to me.
299
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When I got there, I remember Sapathe was the coordinating minister then, I was Minister of State.
300
00:22:29.545 --> 00:22:32.386
He and I had been friends for so long.
301
00:22:32.966 --> 00:22:39.347
We sat down, we looked at all the agenda that the Presidential Advisory Council on Health had put together.
302
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We started implementing.
303
00:22:41.668 --> 00:22:42.628
Those things were not
304
00:22:44.450 --> 00:22:48.015
were not new to me by the time I had Zoom position at Minnesota State.
305
00:22:48.515 --> 00:22:52.461
Then 18 months after, the president said he wanted me to go to education.
306
00:22:52.782 --> 00:22:54.744
So I said, that's the president.
307
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If he thinks that's what he wants me to do, then I do.
308
00:23:00.533 --> 00:23:04.718
You didn't feel like, because obviously you're coming from the health and you have a health background.
309
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Education is a different sort of background as well.
310
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I think when I was doing the research, I was like, well, it's either one or two things.
311
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Either they said, okay, here's this role, got to manage that one.
312
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they trust your competence enough to be able to figure it out.
313
00:23:18.275 --> 00:23:20.356
So I'm going to assume that it was the competence part, obviously.
314
00:23:20.977 --> 00:23:25.239
But then going there, and I've seen a lot of the moves you've also made since then.
315
00:23:25.359 --> 00:23:30.283
One of the moves was transitioning from theoretical to practical.
316
00:23:30.403 --> 00:23:35.486
It's not that we used to make it 70%, I believe, theoretical, and 30% practical.
317
00:23:35.826 --> 00:23:36.407
What made...
318
00:23:36.987 --> 00:23:43.011
you follow up with that change where, hey, let's not have it at 80% practical and 20% theoretical.
319
00:23:43.231 --> 00:23:44.452
This is for our educational system.
320
00:23:44.472 --> 00:23:46.594
We were talking about TVED, and I'll come back to that.
321
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You see, when you look at things, and people look at, oh, it's the big picture that matters the most, the ability to think big.
322
00:23:59.495 --> 00:24:02.976
and the ability to think big and be granular at the same time.
323
00:24:03.756 --> 00:24:07.918
It's very unique skill sets.
324
00:24:08.518 --> 00:24:18.121
So it's the fact that, oh, this person is a doctor, can do well in health, this person is a professor, can do well in education.
325
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That's an archaic phenomenon.
326
00:24:21.802 --> 00:24:23.203
Go to Saudi Arabia today.
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00:24:24.011 --> 00:24:29.795
their vision 2030, they've surpassed every single target they set for themselves.
328
00:24:30.596 --> 00:24:38.621
And what the campus of Saudi did was to just assemble talented people who could think big and tie this agenda.
329
00:24:39.502 --> 00:24:44.045
You have to do the ministry of education in Saudi was a former executive of Aramco.
330
00:24:45.066 --> 00:24:48.088
He's got amazing transformation in the education sector.
331
00:24:48.448 --> 00:24:50.050
And that's what this president did as well.
332
00:24:50.778 --> 00:24:52.943
that look at the people who is put in key positions.
333
00:24:53.705 --> 00:25:00.120
Now, I just wanted to let you know because we need to get out of that myopic view that this, you need to look at
334
00:25:01.659 --> 00:25:05.222
People that can dream big, but just not dream big.
335
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Execute.
336
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Execute.
337
00:25:07.323 --> 00:25:09.105
Be very granular in your execution.
338
00:25:10.366 --> 00:25:18.912
I was reading an article from Ben Bruce just a few days ago asking the president that the president needs more madmen in government.
339
00:25:19.612 --> 00:25:20.553
Contest madmen.
340
00:25:21.494 --> 00:25:29.160
People that will not accept status quo as a norm, that they'll continue to push and drive the canvas until
341
00:25:30.643 --> 00:25:31.344
the gay resort.
342
00:25:32.164 --> 00:25:37.528
He listed some people in government and he said, the Ministry of Petroleum needs more madmen.
343
00:25:38.008 --> 00:25:38.769
So that's the thing.
344
00:25:39.689 --> 00:25:51.877
People that would really, that you have this passion, you know, this is what I want to do without having any own intention, any intention of benefiting yourself.
345
00:25:52.237 --> 00:25:56.820
Now, when we came to education, you look at it, people in the 50s,
346
00:25:59.298 --> 00:26:03.580
various tiers and kind of education worked hand in hand.
347
00:26:04.100 --> 00:26:09.422
You have the tertiary institutions, the universities, the polytechnic, the colleges of education.
348
00:26:09.903 --> 00:26:13.124
You have your secondary schools as well, as well as primary school.
349
00:26:13.424 --> 00:26:17.206
And there's a big part of the education system, the technical schools.
350
00:26:18.367 --> 00:26:20.928
In the last 30 years, completely wiped out.
351
00:26:22.270 --> 00:26:23.010
desecrated.
352
00:26:23.831 --> 00:26:28.813
Beyond even the desecration, it was the way they primitivized it.
353
00:26:28.913 --> 00:26:36.477
They made it look so primitive that it was people, people that didn't do well, that can't do well in life.
354
00:26:36.517 --> 00:26:40.659
Those were the people that went to technical colleges, which was not the case.
355
00:26:42.142 --> 00:26:48.865
Fifty years ago, you could finish your secondary school, go to technical college.
356
00:26:49.526 --> 00:26:52.947
If you wanted to be an entrepreneur, you could start after you finished.
357
00:26:53.287 --> 00:26:57.049
If you wanted to be a artisan, you could start after you finish your technical school.
358
00:26:57.389 --> 00:27:05.513
If you wanted to be a professor or learn more, you went from technical school to polytechnic or to universities.
359
00:27:06.777 --> 00:27:12.903
I remember former speaker of the House of Assembly, went to technical school.
360
00:27:13.264 --> 00:27:15.086
I was just in Jigawa State.
361
00:27:15.526 --> 00:27:19.771
I was talking to the commissioner, one of the commissioner.
362
00:27:20.071 --> 00:27:28.119
He told me I went to Federal Technical College Yaba, and the deputy governor then, who was the current deputy governor of Jigawa State,
363
00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:33.283
went to Yabatech to do H&D as an engineer.
364
00:27:33.723 --> 00:27:37.726
But the former commissioner that went to technical college also went to Yabatech.
365
00:27:37.746 --> 00:27:38.667
That was how they met.
366
00:27:39.027 --> 00:27:48.614
There was continuum in education, but now people just made technical colleges a primitive form of education.
367
00:27:49.094 --> 00:27:51.756
But today, you lived in America.
368
00:27:51.776 --> 00:27:53.777
You went to school there as well at H&D.
369
00:27:54.800 --> 00:27:57.101
Today go to America, Europe, or anywhere.
370
00:27:57.581 --> 00:27:59.541
A plumber, hands more than a doctor.
371
00:27:59.621 --> 00:28:00.081
That's true.
372
00:28:00.361 --> 00:28:03.382
And a nutrition, hands more than a lawyer.
373
00:28:03.662 --> 00:28:04.842
So what are we talking about here?
374
00:28:05.242 --> 00:28:09.563
And we now had a situation in Nigeria that you were building your house.
375
00:28:09.864 --> 00:28:15.165
You don't even have the artisans to do your tiling, your screening.
376
00:28:15.505 --> 00:28:18.946
We were going to Togo to bring these people in.
377
00:28:19.726 --> 00:28:24.607
And I remember Elijah Aliko Dangote was also building his refinery
378
00:28:25.628 --> 00:28:32.193
He said he had to bring almost 22,000 artisans from outside the country.
379
00:28:32.894 --> 00:28:35.976
It was like we're suffering in the midst of plenty.
380
00:28:37.157 --> 00:28:42.962
Suffering, severe, debilitating suffering in the midst of plenty.
381
00:28:43.002 --> 00:28:52.970
When I was given the opportunity by the president to be the minister of education, I looked at it that Nigeria has a unique demography, 220 million people.
382
00:28:54.274 --> 00:28:58.297
30% and 70% of that population below the ages of 30 years old.
383
00:28:59.218 --> 00:29:03.401
Huge growing population of young people.
384
00:29:04.201 --> 00:29:13.228
How can we really give them the opportunity to really be useful to themselves, useful to their community, to the country and the global world at large?
385
00:29:14.849 --> 00:29:19.812
Skill, skills, skill is not the present and the future.
386
00:29:20.473 --> 00:29:22.694
So the way to do that,
387
00:29:23.734 --> 00:29:27.979
is to go back to Tibet, Technical and Vocational Education and Training.
388
00:29:28.560 --> 00:29:31.944
And not the way it was done before, that was so leading.
389
00:29:32.874 --> 00:29:45.781
with theoretical training, it had to, for you to skill somebody, to give somebody vocational skills, technical skills, it had to be practical based, not sitting in classroom.
390
00:29:46.181 --> 00:29:48.902
And that's why we came up with the 70-30 agenda.
391
00:29:49.083 --> 00:29:50.003
And it came with one thing.
392
00:29:50.523 --> 00:29:52.805
You know this, there's something called parietal rule.
393
00:29:53.625 --> 00:29:55.566
Parietal rule is that what, success.
394
00:29:56.406 --> 00:29:58.207
Success is 80% execution,
395
00:30:01.270 --> 00:30:01.871
20%.
396
00:30:01.971 --> 00:30:03.712
20% policy.
397
00:30:03.933 --> 00:30:04.193
Yeah.
398
00:30:04.473 --> 00:30:04.773
Idea.
399
00:30:05.294 --> 00:30:05.955
20% idea.
400
00:30:05.995 --> 00:30:11.700
So if you want to, if it's a priority rule of success, what's success?
401
00:30:11.720 --> 00:30:12.561
80% execution.
402
00:30:13.642 --> 00:30:14.823
And 20% policy.
403
00:30:14.983 --> 00:30:18.587
So, and that was why we started that.
404
00:30:19.067 --> 00:30:22.348
I know there was a bit of pushback initially, but yeah.
405
00:30:22.368 --> 00:30:24.068
Yeah, there was a little bit of pushback.
406
00:30:24.248 --> 00:30:34.950
But then, you see, when you have the wherewithal, and I would say the political support, the president believes in youth of this country.
407
00:30:35.191 --> 00:30:44.653
I'll tell you, anything, if you want to get anything from this president, just say that you're doing for the children of this country, it will give you as long as we do.
408
00:30:44.973 --> 00:30:46.313
So we said this is the president.
409
00:30:47.307 --> 00:30:48.849
Go and skill them up.
410
00:30:49.109 --> 00:30:51.411
Whatever you want me to do, I will do.
411
00:30:52.132 --> 00:31:08.289
One of the things that came up in research, just so you can go deeper, was the nuance around some of the NAPS, I believe, the polytechnic body, basically saying that, oh, they want to be able to give Bachelor of Technology degrees to people coming up from the polytechnics, right?
412
00:31:08.669 --> 00:31:17.073
And I remember reading that part and saying, Kai, Nigeria, man, because it's that thing where there's a procedure that comes from saying I have a bachelor's, I have master's, I have this.
413
00:31:17.093 --> 00:31:24.936
And this is something that Nigerians love being able to introduce themselves and say, you know, Your Excellency, you know, PhD, doctorate, whatever.
414
00:31:25.016 --> 00:31:28.818
So I was wondering, was that a place you could make a compromise on?
415
00:31:28.838 --> 00:31:34.741
Because I was doing research, and yes, there are some countries in the world that allow their polytechnics to give a Bachelor of Technology degrees.
416
00:31:35.141 --> 00:31:37.842
What was your reasoning for saying, no, let's just keep it separate?
417
00:31:38.177 --> 00:31:42.358
No, actually, let me clarify that, and I'll tell you some more good news about that.
418
00:31:42.679 --> 00:31:44.439
But I'll tell you what you've just said.
419
00:31:46.080 --> 00:31:49.641
In Nigeria today, we need to celebrate our country as well.
420
00:31:49.981 --> 00:31:52.162
There are a lot of good things going on in this country.
421
00:31:52.942 --> 00:31:55.163
And this president has brought his country back again.
422
00:31:56.348 --> 00:32:00.291
Today, this is still one country that children want to go to school.
423
00:32:00.631 --> 00:32:01.752
Children want to go to school.
424
00:32:02.252 --> 00:32:03.733
Parents want their kids to go to school.
425
00:32:04.233 --> 00:32:06.715
You go to North America, you go to Europe.
426
00:32:07.336 --> 00:32:08.536
Kids do not want to go to school.
427
00:32:09.237 --> 00:32:15.321
So now, you now have the opportunity that children want, the children want to go to school.
428
00:32:15.961 --> 00:32:17.783
So as a government, what do you do?
429
00:32:19.364 --> 00:32:20.284
Give them the access.
430
00:32:20.585 --> 00:32:22.846
And not just access to education, quality education.
431
00:32:22.866 --> 00:32:23.747
Mm-hmm.
432
00:32:26.092 --> 00:32:35.539
And today, I'll tell you the work that we're doing at the educational ministry, myself, and Professor Sue Eber-Sadamad, the University of State, and our entire team.
433
00:32:35.859 --> 00:32:40.542
It's a lot of work, but Mr. President, President Bela Ametimba has made it so easy for us.
434
00:32:41.383 --> 00:32:45.686
By giving us all the political support and the funding that we have.
435
00:32:46.366 --> 00:32:48.467
And I'll tell you that when...
436
00:32:49.328 --> 00:32:56.773
people came and said they want to do, they want Polytechnic to award B-Tech, Bachelor of Technology.
437
00:32:56.874 --> 00:32:59.015
It wasn't out of the ordinary.
438
00:33:00.396 --> 00:33:15.787
To myself and the Minister of State, as the people that have been given the privilege by the President to suprident over the Ministry of Education, the education sector in the country, we look at the three tiers of education, universities,
439
00:33:16.748 --> 00:33:19.150
and polytechnics and colleges of education are the same.
440
00:33:19.730 --> 00:33:20.590
None is inferior.
441
00:33:21.031 --> 00:33:25.073
But we cannot really change the opinion of people.
442
00:33:25.554 --> 00:33:27.775
If you want to, you can't change the opinion of millions of people.
443
00:33:28.135 --> 00:33:40.023
So how do you mirror things and get things done in a way that is fair, in a way that creates stability, in a way that creates a continuum?
444
00:33:41.398 --> 00:33:46.686
And what we now were faced then, people were converting a polytechnic to universities.
445
00:33:47.146 --> 00:33:56.540
So when you now start converting a polytechnic to universities, that means you send a clear message that, oh, universities, polytechnics are inferior to universities, which is not so.
446
00:33:57.578 --> 00:33:59.459
But before we came, I won't take this credit.
447
00:34:00.159 --> 00:34:06.862
The COESU, that's College of Education Association, a staff union, it's called COESU.
448
00:34:07.242 --> 00:34:10.023
They did one thing with the Colleges of Education.
449
00:34:10.484 --> 00:34:12.525
People were not going to Colleges of Education again.
450
00:34:12.965 --> 00:34:20.608
The Colleges of Education that's been built, Federal Colleges of Education, State Colleges of Education, Private Colleges of Education, were going into extinct.
451
00:34:21.088 --> 00:34:24.770
So they pushed to a legislation that's called dual mandate.
452
00:34:25.310 --> 00:34:31.015
where colleges of education will start now, awarding B.Ed, Bachelor's of Education.
453
00:34:31.535 --> 00:34:33.977
You start with NCE three years.
454
00:34:33.997 --> 00:34:47.708
By the time you're finishing the third year, if you met the requirement, the five credits to go to universities, you just continue in that same school, and you get, after two years, you get a B.Ed, Bachelor's of Education.
455
00:34:48.208 --> 00:34:50.230
We thought that was a good idea.
456
00:34:50.710 --> 00:34:53.912
We pushed through it, the implementation quickly last year.
457
00:34:54.811 --> 00:34:57.212
So many colleges of education are doing that now.
458
00:34:57.492 --> 00:34:58.372
It's called dual-minded.
459
00:34:58.712 --> 00:35:03.034
We've seen significant increase in number of kids going to colleges of education now.
460
00:35:03.574 --> 00:35:04.494
Phenomenal success.
461
00:35:04.794 --> 00:35:12.677
And we've seen that legislators, people, are no longer clamoring to convert colleges of education to universities.
462
00:35:13.517 --> 00:35:18.038
That was now what we latched onto, to do the same thing for polytechnics.
463
00:35:18.438 --> 00:35:22.540
Polytechnics also should be able to give bachelors of tech
464
00:35:23.420 --> 00:35:29.467
in engineering and science-related fields after accreditation by the National Investing Commission.
465
00:35:30.008 --> 00:35:33.872
And in fact, I would have been able to give you a much more...
466
00:35:34.133 --> 00:35:37.156
I would have been able to give you a much more good news
467
00:35:38.486 --> 00:35:49.409
because the bill should have been signed by the president a few weeks ago, but then there were some changes actually in general wanted to be made to that bill.
468
00:35:49.729 --> 00:35:51.469
So it's gone back to the National Assembly.
469
00:35:51.509 --> 00:35:59.972
I've had conversation with distinguished speaker of the House as a rep on a report on expediting the correction.
470
00:36:00.352 --> 00:36:04.713
And hopefully this will get to the president before the end of the year and we'll have the
471
00:36:05.353 --> 00:36:12.821
law that back Polytechnic giving B.Tech in engineering and science-related field.
472
00:36:13.537 --> 00:36:17.738
But, you know, one thing I want to talk about, because we're going to have a lot of skeptics that watch this.
473
00:36:17.838 --> 00:36:18.518
Right.
474
00:36:19.118 --> 00:36:34.602
So I'm you know, I'm reflecting on the conversations I have with my mother and her saying, you know, I went to federal university in the east and I did all my education in university in Nigeria before I even moved to the U.S.
475
00:36:34.682 --> 00:36:34.902
Right.
476
00:36:35.282 --> 00:36:39.743
By the time she went to the U.S. and went to Howard University, she was getting her pharmaceutical degree.
477
00:36:43.784 --> 00:36:45.064
very strong and up to par.
478
00:36:45.324 --> 00:36:48.425
She was able to skip a lot of steps and very easily go in.
479
00:36:48.945 --> 00:36:52.166
Now, a lot of people feel like that has eroded over the years.
480
00:36:52.226 --> 00:36:57.127
So what are the things you're looking at to get more people to go to university here?
481
00:36:57.207 --> 00:37:02.728
Because so often we're talking to people and they're consistently saying, oh, I'm sending my child to university in America.
482
00:37:02.748 --> 00:37:04.069
I'm sending my child to Asia.
483
00:37:04.089 --> 00:37:05.409
I'm sending them to Europe.
484
00:37:05.429 --> 00:37:13.471
So how are you going to change this narrative of you have to send your child abroad to get the strong education system to get work or to work for themselves?
485
00:37:13.911 --> 00:37:14.091
Good.
486
00:37:14.111 --> 00:37:15.412
Very good question, Chika.
487
00:37:16.053 --> 00:37:19.575
Education system at the university at the tertiary level is still very good.
488
00:37:20.435 --> 00:37:28.440
I'll tell you the biggest problem that happened was the lack of continuity of academic calendars in our universities.
489
00:37:28.960 --> 00:37:35.744
That was what made people lose faith and trust in Nigeria's tertiary education system.
490
00:37:35.824 --> 00:37:36.565
So what does that mean?
491
00:37:37.145 --> 00:37:40.127
Because as you go on strike, if you started a course now,
492
00:37:41.519 --> 00:37:45.881
you'd say you're doing law, which was meant to be four year course.
493
00:37:45.982 --> 00:37:47.662
You won't know when you're finishing.
494
00:37:48.043 --> 00:37:50.464
Some of those students stayed in school till six, seven, eight years.
495
00:37:51.264 --> 00:37:53.466
But that's gone.
496
00:37:54.566 --> 00:37:59.889
And I'll tell you a lot of the things we've done and we've seen result quickly in our tertiary education system.
497
00:38:00.650 --> 00:38:02.651
Asus strike is gone, political strike is gone.
498
00:38:03.151 --> 00:38:04.852
Now, look at what's happening.
499
00:38:06.009 --> 00:38:09.411
I'll tell you some data.
500
00:38:10.012 --> 00:38:22.620
University of Lurie, it is the most sought after university, was the most sought after university in the country.
501
00:38:23.020 --> 00:38:29.204
With almost close to 80,000 people choosing University of Lurie as their first choice.
502
00:38:30.605 --> 00:38:33.947
In the last two years, University of Lurie went to number five.
503
00:38:33.967 --> 00:38:34.688
Hmm.
504
00:38:35.237 --> 00:38:37.238
from being number one for almost 10 years.
505
00:38:39.478 --> 00:38:40.198
We went to number five.
506
00:38:40.938 --> 00:38:41.739
What is the answer?
507
00:38:41.959 --> 00:38:43.119
The simple answer was that.
508
00:38:43.139 --> 00:38:54.242
So I asked the then-JAMG register, Professor Oloyede, who was also the vice-student of the University of Lurie that put this good situation for University of Lurie in place.
509
00:38:54.842 --> 00:38:58.423
What he did then was that he said, no ASU in my university.
510
00:38:59.557 --> 00:39:05.422
The 14 boys insisted that if you want to be a lecturer here, you cannot be part of ASU.
511
00:39:05.482 --> 00:39:06.203
There was no ASU.
512
00:39:06.684 --> 00:39:13.530
So people went there because they knew when they got into school, four-year course would be four-year course.
513
00:39:14.707 --> 00:39:17.588
Today, the president also campaigned that four-year course will be four-year course.
514
00:39:17.608 --> 00:39:18.928
Today, we now have the same.
515
00:39:19.188 --> 00:39:22.168
When the president has made that promise, four-year course is four-year course.
516
00:39:22.669 --> 00:39:31.310
Whoever entered, any student that entered for a four-year degree, when President Bola Mertin was sworn in in May 2023, will be finishing next year.
517
00:39:32.911 --> 00:39:35.331
We've had continuous academic calendar.
518
00:39:35.771 --> 00:39:36.811
So what have we now seen?
519
00:39:37.431 --> 00:39:39.792
More students are now going to public universities.
520
00:39:41.123 --> 00:39:46.425
The people, what drove people out of the country, drove parents to say, you know, it's good.
521
00:39:46.445 --> 00:39:49.946
I told you that's a major bright spot in our country.
522
00:39:50.767 --> 00:39:51.987
Children want to go to school.
523
00:39:52.787 --> 00:39:54.548
Parents want their kids to go to school.
524
00:39:54.608 --> 00:39:55.548
Good education.
525
00:39:55.869 --> 00:39:56.749
So this is good.
526
00:39:57.329 --> 00:39:58.731
And we should embellish that.
527
00:39:58.751 --> 00:40:09.181
And that's what we've done as a government to really embellish that, keep that in focus, keep that as a practice in our country, because that's what will continue to drive this economy.
528
00:40:09.822 --> 00:40:12.585
Now, because of the stability of academic calendar,
529
00:40:14.097 --> 00:40:15.617
More students are going to public schools.
530
00:40:16.178 --> 00:40:22.699
We now have to now begin to tell people now, even people sending kids abroad, they begin to bring their kids back.
531
00:40:22.799 --> 00:40:31.542
I'll tell you, University of Lagos two years ago, for their law program, oversubscribed.
532
00:40:31.582 --> 00:40:34.323
They have these baccalaureate A-levels that they did.
533
00:40:35.643 --> 00:40:37.423
Normally, it'll be people that went abroad.
534
00:40:37.503 --> 00:40:39.324
A lot of students came back and did that.
535
00:40:40.222 --> 00:40:40.902
oversubscribed.
536
00:40:40.942 --> 00:40:44.585
And we're seeing that at all, at so many of our universities.
537
00:40:44.865 --> 00:40:55.791
And I'll tell you, this is not my own making, Times International, Times board ranking of the top 1,000 universities in the world.
538
00:40:56.952 --> 00:41:00.234
Before President Bola Metinable came in, and I'll tell you a lot of the
539
00:41:01.272 --> 00:41:05.094
restructuring investment we've made in a tertiary education.
540
00:41:05.415 --> 00:41:07.056
I'll tell you a bit of that in a minute.
541
00:41:07.676 --> 00:41:11.318
Let me just tell you the result we're seeing from those investments.
542
00:41:12.439 --> 00:41:23.345
Before 2023, the top universities in Nigeria, the five top universities were mostly private universities.
543
00:41:24.345 --> 00:41:28.288
Up to 2009, at least I can tell you the data for 2024, 2023, 2022.
544
00:41:31.508 --> 00:41:48.976
By 2025, by 2026, the Times World Rating of the top 1,000 to 1,200 universities in the world, the best university in the world, had 24 Nigerian universities rated.
545
00:41:51.698 --> 00:41:56.860
Before we came in, it took a few years for the changes to happen.
546
00:41:57.581 --> 00:41:59.882
We only had 21 universities rated.
547
00:42:01.905 --> 00:42:04.166
In 2026, three additional universities.
548
00:42:04.186 --> 00:42:07.608
You might look at it as three additional universities, but that's a big deal.
549
00:42:08.328 --> 00:42:14.351
Three more universities in Nigeria meeting that prestigious category of universities.
550
00:42:15.451 --> 00:42:16.192
2026, 21 from 2025.
551
00:42:16.212 --> 00:42:19.053
Now in 2026, public universities accounted for the top five.
552
00:42:26.903 --> 00:42:27.823
Let me agree myself.
553
00:42:28.304 --> 00:42:31.985
Before, the top five were mostly private universities.
554
00:42:33.186 --> 00:42:36.287
By this 2026, probably university were the top five.
555
00:42:36.667 --> 00:42:40.769
University of Lagos and University of Breda tied at the first place.
556
00:42:41.349 --> 00:42:46.271
Then you had Amadou Bela University, your Bayou University, and I think Convenor was number five.
557
00:42:48.072 --> 00:42:48.312
That's
558
00:42:49.525 --> 00:43:00.428
shows the changes that have the investment, the interventions were made in our university education and most in our entire tertiary education.
559
00:43:01.168 --> 00:43:03.208
And I'll come to those specifics.
560
00:43:03.709 --> 00:43:12.891
But let me now tell you the most gratifying part of the 24 universities that were rated, 17 were public universities.
561
00:43:14.802 --> 00:43:15.943
You can go fact check me.
562
00:43:16.243 --> 00:43:20.726
Times International World Rating of the top 1,000 to 1,200 universities in the world.
563
00:43:20.746 --> 00:43:22.607
17 of the 24 rated universities in Nigeria.
564
00:43:29.931 --> 00:43:31.772
were all public universities.
565
00:43:31.792 --> 00:43:34.494
Let me tell you several investment we've done in education.
566
00:43:35.134 --> 00:43:47.002
Between in 2025, we invested almost 120 billion euro to expand, upgrade 18 medical schools across the country.
567
00:43:48.294 --> 00:44:05.458
Those investments went into building infrastructure, rehabbing infrastructure, buying new equipment, buying new instructional materials for those schools to expand to double their capacity to admit more students to study medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and nursing.
568
00:44:06.614 --> 00:44:16.417
We followed suit with another 70 billion nera investment in 2026 to add another six universities to it.
569
00:44:17.758 --> 00:44:27.341
In 2026, we're spending 52 billion nera to equip almost 25 medical schools.
570
00:44:28.921 --> 00:44:29.661
In 2026, we're spending
571
00:44:31.766 --> 00:44:45.835
about 110 billionaires to rehab faculty of engineering in our universities, in our conventional universities, and six federal universities of technology and several polytechnics.
572
00:44:46.536 --> 00:44:50.398
The 120 billionaires will go to either do three things.
573
00:44:51.379 --> 00:45:05.294
They have existing engineering workshop and fitted with modern engineering equipment or build new engineering workshop, and install new equipment in those faculty of engineering.
574
00:45:05.314 --> 00:45:05.734
From 2024,
575
00:45:07.755 --> 00:45:16.079
a mandatory tech fund to only use their funding, direct intervention to tertiary institutions to do five things.
576
00:45:17.299 --> 00:45:21.281
We have student classes, a student auditorium,
577
00:45:22.902 --> 00:45:32.271
rehab their hostels, purchase equipment for laboratory, rehab laboratories, or all by instructional materials.
578
00:45:32.831 --> 00:45:36.875
The entire 2024, 2025 technical funding and 2026 funding was all directed to those things.
579
00:45:36.895 --> 00:45:37.676
For our tertiary schools,
580
00:45:48.045 --> 00:45:54.452
This president, this government, President Bola Ametunibu, has invested 250 billion euros to build new hostess.
581
00:45:55.393 --> 00:45:56.955
All our costs are tertiary institutions.
582
00:45:58.356 --> 00:46:04.703
Every single school in this country, university, polytechnics, or colleges of education,
583
00:46:05.890 --> 00:46:08.092
have acute shortage of accommodation.
584
00:46:08.512 --> 00:46:10.974
I'll give you an example of the University of Lagos.
585
00:46:10.994 --> 00:46:15.178
The University of Lagos has about 38, 32 or 34,000 students.
586
00:46:15.638 --> 00:46:20.562
They could only provide accommodation for 10,000 students.
587
00:46:21.323 --> 00:46:23.245
Yabba Tech has 28,000 students.
588
00:46:23.265 --> 00:46:26.848
They could provide accommodation for less than 3,000 students.
589
00:46:26.868 --> 00:46:32.452
What we've done is that we're spending about 250 billion naira to build new accommodations.
590
00:46:32.532 --> 00:46:33.853
I'll tell you the way we've done it.
591
00:46:34.754 --> 00:46:44.059
Some of those institutions are getting two billion naira each to build at least 500 bedded accommodation space for them.
592
00:46:44.959 --> 00:46:51.423
Some of them got innovative arrangement of PPP.
593
00:46:52.103 --> 00:46:55.164
Tech Fund will bring 1 billion to the table.
594
00:46:55.824 --> 00:46:57.525
A private developer will bring 3 billion.
595
00:46:58.085 --> 00:47:05.327
That will deliver, 4 billion will deliver between 1,200 and 1,500 accommodation spaces to students.
596
00:47:05.867 --> 00:47:08.568
These projects are going on all across the country.
597
00:47:09.528 --> 00:47:26.161
And I'll tell you, we've also beyond now improving the capacity, beyond now improving the welfare of our staff, we've also added something called TIPS, tertiary institution staff support fund, interest-free loan,
598
00:47:27.089 --> 00:47:28.550
to this staff.
599
00:47:28.670 --> 00:47:41.739
In the education system, you take care of the student, you have to take care of the staff as well because academic and non-academic staff, those are the ones that ensure the delivery of education is done the right way.
600
00:47:42.299 --> 00:47:46.162
As we're taking care of student needs, let me even go back to student needs.
601
00:47:46.802 --> 00:47:49.944
We're energizing our tertiary institutions.
602
00:47:50.504 --> 00:47:55.428
We're building solar mini grid across tertiary institutions across the country.
603
00:47:55.868 --> 00:47:57.129
That takes them completely off grid.
604
00:47:57.529 --> 00:48:01.952
Between, I'll tell you, the rest of Abuja now has 3.1 megahertz.
605
00:48:02.532 --> 00:48:04.453
They're fully, 24-hour electricity.
606
00:48:04.473 --> 00:48:11.418
You need that for student comfort, for lecturer comfort, for them to be able to do research, for their laboratories and engineering workshops to work well.
607
00:48:12.426 --> 00:48:20.173
We have those, you go to some other university, but I'll tell you now, last year we'll get 12 megats mini grid.
608
00:48:20.653 --> 00:48:21.574
Bayeuro has it.
609
00:48:21.874 --> 00:48:22.895
We have it in almost 37.
610
00:48:23.015 --> 00:48:31.863
Our goal is to ensure that every tertiary institution in the country, public tertiary institution, both federal and some states, are off-grid.
611
00:48:32.043 --> 00:48:33.564
They have continuous electricity.
612
00:48:34.417 --> 00:48:37.298
We're doing it in such a way, in an innovative way.
613
00:48:37.798 --> 00:48:47.239
We're just not building this independent mini grid between 2.2 megahertz to 12 megahertz, based on the need of the university.
614
00:48:47.559 --> 00:48:51.520
Michael Aquara has 7 megahertz mini grid.
615
00:48:51.940 --> 00:48:54.440
We're building in every geopolitical zone.
616
00:48:54.981 --> 00:49:01.502
Beyond building this mini grid, we know that you invest $3 million, $4 million to build these mini grids.
617
00:49:01.902 --> 00:49:02.802
What will happen is that,
618
00:49:03.582 --> 00:49:05.243
Two years from now, you need a replacement part.
619
00:49:06.284 --> 00:49:07.284
It will stop working.
620
00:49:08.445 --> 00:49:09.686
This president told us one thing.
621
00:49:09.786 --> 00:49:14.649
Whatever you do, as my minister, you need to do it in such a way that is sustainable.
622
00:49:15.750 --> 00:49:20.753
Next week, we'll be launching what's called RAMCO, Renewable Asset Management Company.
623
00:49:21.907 --> 00:49:28.789
that Ramco will owe these mini grids in asset in combination with Murphy, Ministry of Finance Incorporated.
624
00:49:29.389 --> 00:49:34.330
They will now run it, sell energy at a cheaper cost to this institution.
625
00:49:34.350 --> 00:49:39.672
These mini grids are in service and in place 10, 20, 30 years from now.
626
00:49:40.672 --> 00:49:42.093
So we've done that.
627
00:49:42.674 --> 00:49:45.516
We've also done our own tri-cycle.
628
00:49:45.536 --> 00:49:49.279
We provide campus support for campus transportation.
629
00:49:49.620 --> 00:49:54.104
We have tri-cycles sent to all, so several of our tertiary institutions today.
630
00:49:54.544 --> 00:49:55.985
You have those kids now, they're so happy.
631
00:49:56.265 --> 00:49:59.128
They only pay $100 per, $100 per drop.
632
00:49:59.869 --> 00:50:01.410
They're not working, they're not stressed.
633
00:50:02.812 --> 00:50:15.090
We also, beyond training the students, we're giving them quality of education, we also want them to be not job seekers, to be job creators.
634
00:50:15.971 --> 00:50:18.094
We've infused entrepreneurial
635
00:50:18.815 --> 00:50:20.836
training into their training.
636
00:50:21.237 --> 00:50:22.378
Entrepreneurship training.
637
00:50:22.738 --> 00:50:33.065
We now have a program called EBIC, Entrepreneurial Innovation and Business Incubation Certification that we're piloting it in 14 universities this year.
638
00:50:33.625 --> 00:50:34.966
It's going to be part of their courses.
639
00:50:35.387 --> 00:50:42.692
So if you started chemical engineering now and you're doing five-year course in chemical engineering, you would...
640
00:50:43.372 --> 00:50:46.553
that you do that EBIC course from year one to year five.
641
00:50:47.213 --> 00:50:48.514
You have to be certificated.
642
00:50:48.734 --> 00:50:51.174
You have to get certificate before you finish.
643
00:50:51.214 --> 00:50:52.115
We've seen this work.
644
00:50:52.795 --> 00:50:57.356
The University of Lagos has done this EBIC training for the last two, three, four years.
645
00:50:57.896 --> 00:51:02.118
We've seen the difference in the students that did those training.
646
00:51:02.158 --> 00:51:10.380
I'll tell you, you could either classify it as anecdote, classify it as anecdote or objective data.
647
00:51:11.408 --> 00:51:27.732
We have the Student Venture Capital Grant, where it's a program that we're giving equity-free funding of about 50 million to students that have late-stage invention of products they want to take to the market.
648
00:51:27.792 --> 00:51:31.492
The first one that we did last year, we had almost 36,000 students apply.
649
00:51:32.213 --> 00:51:34.353
Though we only gave it to 42 students.
650
00:51:34.373 --> 00:51:38.434
But of the 42 students, 10 came from University of Lagos.
651
00:51:39.214 --> 00:51:44.917
Of the 10 students that were successful, eight of them had gone through the EBIT program.
652
00:51:45.978 --> 00:51:58.705
So we hope by next year, we would introduce the entrepreneurship, innovation, business, incubation, incubation certification in all our federal universities and polytechnics and colleges of education.
653
00:51:59.226 --> 00:52:02.728
So I've really delved on what we've done to create
654
00:52:03.548 --> 00:52:07.991
a comfortable life experience for a student in a tertiary institution.
655
00:52:08.291 --> 00:52:12.734
Today, I don't believe anybody should send their kids to a brother.
656
00:52:12.854 --> 00:52:14.395
Education is still as strong as ever.
657
00:52:14.935 --> 00:52:21.180
Look at the people in a medical education, the rate of admission to get into medical school.
658
00:52:22.100 --> 00:52:26.341
In Nigeria today, it's much lower than to get to Harvard.
659
00:52:27.441 --> 00:52:29.701
That's why we've expanded capacity before.
660
00:52:29.761 --> 00:52:37.243
I'll tell you what we've done about this JAPA syndrome and everything.
661
00:52:37.443 --> 00:52:49.025
Before President Bola Mertino was warning, it was like the word was falling, no nurses, doctor, JAPA, JAPA, all those things, all those words, whatever nomenclature you want to give it.
662
00:52:49.765 --> 00:52:51.265
We had shortage of nurses.
663
00:52:52.405 --> 00:53:02.455
And we got, when myself and I was a part of the administrative health, and I'm happy to be able to continue the work now as a minister of education, we sat down there, these kids want to go study nursing.
664
00:53:03.496 --> 00:53:05.298
Why are we depriving them the opportunity?
665
00:53:06.102 --> 00:53:08.903
We're only enrolling 28,000 nurses annually then.
666
00:53:09.384 --> 00:53:11.485
So we sat down and said, what are we going to do?
667
00:53:11.925 --> 00:53:14.806
The short term, the medium term, and long term.
668
00:53:15.506 --> 00:53:22.790
We put a target for ourselves that in two years, we would increase annual nursing enrollment from 28,000.
669
00:53:22.830 --> 00:53:28.473
When President Bola mentioned we inherited, we were sworn as president, we increased it to 115,000.
670
00:53:28.513 --> 00:53:32.855
We chose that number and we said, we're not going to build, this is not about building brick and mortar.
671
00:53:33.395 --> 00:53:46.564
We're going to use what we have on the gun because we had several medical centers, specialist hospitals, teaching hospitals, that they have full-fledged hospitals.
672
00:53:46.805 --> 00:53:47.805
They don't have nursing schools.
673
00:53:48.166 --> 00:53:53.009
So we mandated everyone of them that they must open their nursing school.
674
00:53:53.570 --> 00:53:56.572
All teaching hospitals without nursing school, we mandated them.
675
00:53:57.112 --> 00:53:57.612
Guess what?
676
00:53:58.773 --> 00:54:02.396
Three years after, we surpassed that target.
677
00:54:03.598 --> 00:54:08.543
we're earning over 140,000 nurses annually to our nursing school today.
678
00:54:09.724 --> 00:54:13.769
Talk to anybody in the healthcare sector, we have enough nurses now.
679
00:54:15.230 --> 00:54:18.313
There's no shortage of nurses in Nigeria again.
680
00:54:18.734 --> 00:54:20.536
And what we looked at then was that, okay,
681
00:54:21.680 --> 00:54:29.462
If you are training 28,000 and 50% of them were migrating abroad, you're only left with 14,000.
682
00:54:29.602 --> 00:54:34.043
But if you train 100,000 and 50% went abroad, you have 50,000.
683
00:54:34.423 --> 00:54:36.483
And with us, we don't want them to go abroad.
684
00:54:36.824 --> 00:54:40.885
It's a source of foreign influence to the country.
685
00:54:41.085 --> 00:54:42.985
Because Nigerians are good people.
686
00:54:43.185 --> 00:54:46.526
They go, they take care of their parents, they take care of their sisters, they take care of their uncle.
687
00:54:46.846 --> 00:54:47.466
Money will come.
688
00:54:47.866 --> 00:54:51.047
As they know us, if you worked in England or America, you make a lot of money.
689
00:54:51.987 --> 00:54:54.808
But we didn't stop with nursing alone.
690
00:54:55.329 --> 00:54:58.910
Before we came in as a government, we're only admitting, guess what?
691
00:54:58.950 --> 00:55:01.992
We're only admitting 5,000 students into medical school.
692
00:55:02.692 --> 00:55:03.632
Only 5,000.
693
00:55:03.732 --> 00:55:04.193
Only 5,000.
694
00:55:04.433 --> 00:55:08.214
And today, we had Nigeria's shortage.
695
00:55:08.915 --> 00:55:12.857
If you look at the nursing, the doctor shortage that you have in the country, it's about 340,000.
696
00:55:12.917 --> 00:55:14.637
And we're only admitting 5,000.
697
00:55:14.677 --> 00:55:16.558
That was about the number.
698
00:55:17.078 --> 00:55:20.260
My own medical school, the University of Lagos College of Medicine,
699
00:55:21.948 --> 00:55:25.796
When I was a student, they were admitting about 150 students.
700
00:55:25.936 --> 00:55:26.216
150.
701
00:55:26.277 --> 00:55:27.299
150 students annually.
702
00:55:27.479 --> 00:55:28.080
That's it?
703
00:55:28.421 --> 00:55:29.262
That was it.
704
00:55:29.363 --> 00:55:30.044
That's it.
705
00:55:30.777 --> 00:55:35.721
But when we came in, and it remained the same for 30-something years after.
706
00:55:35.741 --> 00:55:38.123
We said, this is not acceptable.
707
00:55:38.744 --> 00:55:41.726
So we said, we will double the capacity quadruple.
708
00:55:42.467 --> 00:55:45.729
And that's why we invested so much in medical education.
709
00:55:45.749 --> 00:55:52.995
And we will double increased capacity quadruple, even without compromising quality.
710
00:55:53.376 --> 00:55:55.617
We worked with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
711
00:55:56.518 --> 00:56:06.390
But today, I'm happy to report to you today that we've increased our annual enrollment to medical school to about 12,000 students in just about three years.
712
00:56:06.410 --> 00:56:10.935
We want to get about 20,000 medical students being admitted every year.
713
00:56:11.515 --> 00:56:12.957
The reason why you're not seeing that
714
00:56:14.735 --> 00:56:17.599
You're not feeling that now because there's this shortage.
715
00:56:17.939 --> 00:56:20.763
It's because it takes about five, six years to train medical school.
716
00:56:21.043 --> 00:56:25.229
In two years, we won't have this shortage of doctors that we have.
717
00:56:25.770 --> 00:56:30.075
But we have increased the number to about 20,000, and now we're doing 12,000.
718
00:56:30.396 --> 00:56:31.117
But guess what?
719
00:56:31.895 --> 00:56:34.697
Why does it have to be, for example, not to be fixing all these problems?
720
00:56:35.238 --> 00:56:38.100
These were problems that existed decades ago.
721
00:56:38.681 --> 00:56:43.805
But this president said, he inherited the asset, he also inherited the liabilities.
722
00:56:44.065 --> 00:56:45.266
He will fix all these problems.
723
00:56:46.087 --> 00:56:49.450
The same thing we're doing with dentistry, we're doing the same thing with pharmacy.
724
00:56:49.490 --> 00:56:50.351
We're secure there.
725
00:56:50.751 --> 00:57:00.941
In our engineering school, we're putting more of artificial intelligence, more than engineering training, robotics, and data science into our engineering school.
726
00:57:01.101 --> 00:57:09.249
We're restructuring the way we develop tertiary institutions to be skill-based, and not just theoretical-based.
727
00:57:09.950 --> 00:57:10.650
If you go back,
728
00:57:11.437 --> 00:57:13.218
And look at what we've done today.
729
00:57:13.939 --> 00:57:15.500
Look at the quality of our education.
730
00:57:16.020 --> 00:57:16.801
Nigeria is back.
731
00:57:17.862 --> 00:57:18.983
Our education system is back.
732
00:57:20.264 --> 00:57:23.126
I've just limited myself to tertiary education.
733
00:57:23.486 --> 00:57:34.394
I can tell you about secondary education and primary intervention at the basic and post-basic education, basic and secondary school education, if you have time, but if you want me to go to other areas...
734
00:57:34.474 --> 00:57:36.416
I want to lead into that so that you can go in there.
735
00:57:36.436 --> 00:57:36.976
So let me...
736
00:57:38.237 --> 00:57:39.098
pull up this question.
737
00:57:39.118 --> 00:57:43.860
I don't know if you saw, I think this was in July, but we went viral with the Oluda uprising.
738
00:57:44.241 --> 00:57:46.622
We had YC, a popular rapper on here.
739
00:57:47.082 --> 00:57:51.525
And he basically said, there's an Oluda uprising happening in Nigeria, but I actually think it's even global, right?
740
00:57:51.945 --> 00:57:59.370
So as somebody who's in the medical field, usually when there's a problem, there's symptoms, you diagnose, and then you put out possible solutions, right?
741
00:57:59.750 --> 00:58:03.172
First of all, what were your thoughts around this Oludo Uprising thing?
742
00:58:03.492 --> 00:58:05.034
Which side of the fence are you on?
743
00:58:05.214 --> 00:58:05.774
That's number one.
744
00:58:05.794 --> 00:58:08.176
But number two, when you think about the possible...
745
00:58:09.183 --> 00:58:17.325
And I think my question is more of when you look back, even in your past, your generation grew up in Nigeria, where our universities and schools were world class.
746
00:58:17.345 --> 00:58:18.545
My dad went to school here.
747
00:58:19.025 --> 00:58:21.085
You know, my dad's friends, everybody went to school here.
748
00:58:21.105 --> 00:58:22.946
They always claim me very proudly, right?
749
00:58:23.366 --> 00:58:34.908
What do you think happened from a historical perspective so that our generation understands how not to repeat these mistakes and how can we make sure that these things don't repeat themselves, even when we're the ones now in power?
750
00:58:34.928 --> 00:58:36.148
And how do we make sure we ensure
751
00:58:36.528 --> 00:58:37.928
sustainability as we go forward.
752
00:58:37.948 --> 00:58:38.628
Very good question.
753
00:58:38.708 --> 00:58:40.309
I'll break it into two or three.
754
00:58:40.629 --> 00:58:43.749
The loader of pricing by YC, I'll come to that.
755
00:58:43.789 --> 00:58:50.511
Then what happened to the quality of education over the past decades?
756
00:58:51.311 --> 00:58:54.291
Now, compared to when your dad went to school, I went to school.
757
00:58:54.791 --> 00:59:02.573
I was talking just a few days ago, someone was sitting next to me, I said when I was in medical school, we had like 24 hours a day.
758
00:59:03.598 --> 00:59:05.039
We had water 24 hours a day.
759
00:59:05.099 --> 00:59:05.659
In Nigeria?
760
00:59:05.760 --> 00:59:06.360
In Nigeria.
761
00:59:07.040 --> 00:59:10.083
And someone said, it was like, whoa, what's this man talking about?
762
00:59:10.143 --> 00:59:11.764
And I looked back and I said, yes.
763
00:59:12.584 --> 00:59:13.685
Would I sit there and be lying?
764
00:59:14.946 --> 00:59:16.687
We had lied 24 hours a day.
765
00:59:16.908 --> 00:59:23.412
There was never a night that we slept in darkness in medical school.
766
00:59:23.452 --> 00:59:30.738
So, and I tell people, you want Nigerians to really be confident of themselves to do well.
767
00:59:31.590 --> 00:59:39.473
When I go to America and I started work as a resident in a hospital, the nurse was talking.
768
00:59:39.493 --> 00:59:43.295
They said, oh, these African people, and these Nigerians, they're so proud.
769
00:59:43.315 --> 00:59:44.175
They're so arrogant.
770
00:59:44.775 --> 00:59:47.176
And I told her, I said, no, we're not arrogant.
771
00:59:47.856 --> 00:59:49.737
It's just we're confident of ourselves.
772
00:59:49.857 --> 00:59:51.558
That's the way we're brought up.
773
00:59:51.998 --> 00:59:53.899
Your parents, the society, the respect.
774
00:59:54.919 --> 00:59:55.740
And we're not arrogant.
775
00:59:55.760 --> 00:59:56.140
I said, no.
776
00:59:56.560 --> 00:59:58.161
And so he said, oh, you're right.
777
00:59:58.181 --> 01:00:00.142
You know these Nigerians.
778
01:00:00.242 --> 01:00:04.465
Every Nigerian that I met, they have this self-confidence in themselves.
779
01:00:05.365 --> 01:00:11.769
And today, and that's what I'm telling people, we want these kids to continue to have that self-confidence in themselves.
780
01:00:12.490 --> 01:00:15.051
And that's what drives them to succeed anywhere in the world.
781
01:00:15.672 --> 01:00:18.413
We have to give them the congenial environment.
782
01:00:18.714 --> 01:00:21.996
We have to give them, we have to treat them with respect.
783
01:00:22.616 --> 01:00:24.177
Government has to treat them with respect.
784
01:00:25.162 --> 01:00:27.023
in the way we'd intervene.
785
01:00:27.603 --> 01:00:34.185
So what had happened in the preceding years, before President Bola mentioned we got in there, I'll tell you things have changed.
786
01:00:35.125 --> 01:00:37.446
We did not invest in infrastructures.
787
01:00:38.186 --> 01:00:43.688
You had student enrollment quadruple 10 times, you kept the same infrastructure.
788
01:00:44.838 --> 01:00:46.420
And that's what I've told you.
789
01:00:47.041 --> 01:00:47.862
Look at what's happening.
790
01:00:47.882 --> 01:00:51.386
How do we improve student experience?
791
01:00:51.986 --> 01:00:57.833
The student experiences at school, and we've deliberately tackled those things.
792
01:00:58.354 --> 01:01:01.217
I told you about an energizing education program.
793
01:01:01.918 --> 01:01:08.159
They were providing solar off-grid electricity to supply to a tertiary institution.
794
01:01:08.179 --> 01:01:11.240
We have by the end of the year, we're at 37.
795
01:01:11.300 --> 01:01:13.840
Go to any of those schools today, go and fact check me.
796
01:01:14.500 --> 01:01:20.481
University of Abuja, Bayou University, Albu-Michael Okara University, go there today.
797
01:01:22.142 --> 01:01:24.322
Fact check every investment that we're making there.
798
01:01:24.682 --> 01:01:29.823
So the University of Abuja, 3.2 megahertz was built by about $3.7 million.
799
01:01:32.000 --> 01:01:36.781
We're providing more accommodation, decent accommodation to the students.
800
01:01:37.661 --> 01:01:42.103
We're providing new engineering workshops with state-of-the-art equipment to them.
801
01:01:42.743 --> 01:01:44.463
We're rehabilitating their hostess.
802
01:01:44.883 --> 01:01:46.344
We're rehabilitating their classrooms.
803
01:01:47.904 --> 01:01:50.085
We are providing campus mobility for them.
804
01:01:50.785 --> 01:01:53.166
We're providing internet in universities for them.
805
01:01:53.826 --> 01:01:58.547
We're building and modernizing their laboratories for them.
806
01:01:59.672 --> 01:02:01.314
We've now made the lives off.
807
01:02:01.554 --> 01:02:08.402
We've stopped the vicious circle of breakages that we have in our academic calendar.
808
01:02:09.083 --> 01:02:10.825
That's gone to eternity.
809
01:02:11.766 --> 01:02:16.091
We're also focusing on welfare of academic and non-academic styles.
810
01:02:18.640 --> 01:02:19.941
We're giving them interest-free loan.
811
01:02:20.481 --> 01:02:23.624
We're paying them as a deal, giving them significant increase.
812
01:02:23.664 --> 01:02:26.326
It wasn't only academic staff that got increase.
813
01:02:26.686 --> 01:02:29.068
Old enough academic staff also got 35% increase.
814
01:02:30.118 --> 01:02:31.739
What about the academic staff?
815
01:02:31.779 --> 01:02:32.460
Was it 35%?
816
01:02:32.500 --> 01:02:33.681
40%.
817
01:02:34.021 --> 01:02:36.203
Non-academic staff, 85%.
818
01:02:36.683 --> 01:02:37.704
And we're paying all the annuals.
819
01:02:37.944 --> 01:02:41.887
There are N academic allowance and N allowances.
820
01:02:41.987 --> 01:02:42.448
We're paying.
821
01:02:43.228 --> 01:02:47.071
So we've met, and a lot of those areas have also been paid.
822
01:02:47.431 --> 01:02:48.932
The ones that we haven't paid, we're paying.
823
01:02:49.433 --> 01:02:53.236
So we're bringing that experience back to our tertiary institutions.
824
01:02:53.776 --> 01:02:54.177
But then,
825
01:02:55.059 --> 01:02:59.762
where there's been so much infrastructure decay, a special gap that we have to.
826
01:03:00.263 --> 01:03:08.128
And I just told you, in the last, this year, we're spending $250 billion in building student hostess.
827
01:03:08.929 --> 01:03:10.830
No, no, it wasn't done before.
828
01:03:12.171 --> 01:03:18.656
If we go out, if this previous government had done this accretive investment in infrastructure, we won't be here today.
829
01:03:18.896 --> 01:03:19.457
But guess what?
830
01:03:20.152 --> 01:03:21.433
We have our quarter for us.
831
01:03:22.033 --> 01:03:23.033
We're not going to re-net.
832
01:03:23.694 --> 01:03:24.394
We're going to do it.
833
01:03:24.694 --> 01:03:25.975
And we're investing heavily.
834
01:03:27.335 --> 01:03:27.715
Evily.
835
01:03:28.436 --> 01:03:37.540
Look at, for the first time in the history of our country, 2025, 2024, we had the highest budgetary allocation to education ever in the history of this country.
836
01:03:37.560 --> 01:03:38.940
Yeah, because it was very low.
837
01:03:39.180 --> 01:03:40.081
It was very low.
838
01:03:40.681 --> 01:03:42.962
This president, President Obama, knows what to do.
839
01:03:44.168 --> 01:03:48.610
So what you said was true, but now, no.
840
01:03:49.490 --> 01:03:51.951
Go to our universities, go to our ,, go to the College of Education.
841
01:03:52.191 --> 01:03:52.751
They're happy.
842
01:03:53.931 --> 01:03:56.312
And with their yet, no, but they know we're intervening.
843
01:03:56.732 --> 01:03:59.593
And we're intervening very well in areas that matters.
844
01:04:00.394 --> 01:04:01.174
That's what we're doing.
845
01:04:02.715 --> 01:04:05.916
So when you come to Olodo, Olodo, Uprising.
846
01:04:06.096 --> 01:04:06.896
Uprising.
847
01:04:07.416 --> 01:04:07.716
Yes.
848
01:04:08.537 --> 01:04:10.437
I share his sentiment, but guess what, though?
849
01:04:11.157 --> 01:04:12.358
That was what happened before.
850
01:04:13.477 --> 01:04:18.559
We were, the education system was structured to just create theoretical skills.
851
01:04:20.340 --> 01:04:27.583
You have people going to schools, living with zero skills.
852
01:04:28.484 --> 01:04:32.806
And then, but one thing those teacher institutions do well, which is what they do.
853
01:04:33.546 --> 01:04:35.247
They put this chip on your shoulders.
854
01:04:35.967 --> 01:04:36.828
Well, I'm a graduate.
855
01:04:37.228 --> 01:04:38.308
Then graduate of what?
856
01:04:38.968 --> 01:04:39.949
Graduate of nothing.
857
01:04:40.829 --> 01:04:42.090
You don't have any skills.
858
01:04:43.771 --> 01:04:45.913
And that's what I'm saying, you are graduate of nothing.
859
01:04:46.093 --> 01:04:46.973
You don't have any skills.
860
01:04:47.514 --> 01:04:50.196
That's what has changed in the last two, three years.
861
01:04:51.036 --> 01:04:53.358
We're putting skills back in the educational system.
862
01:04:54.919 --> 01:05:00.283
I'm telling people with Activate, you could be doing mass communication, learning skills.
863
01:05:00.723 --> 01:05:09.550
We have computer networking, we have solar photovoltaic, we have fashion and government making, we have beauty, we have beef farming.
864
01:05:11.111 --> 01:05:12.812
Things that you could make money easily.
865
01:05:14.098 --> 01:05:14.659
Learn skills.
866
01:05:15.020 --> 01:05:22.597
Beyond that as well, we've also started this digital technology academy where we're paying
867
01:05:24.004 --> 01:05:32.471
for students to do six months course by Coursera, designed by Coursera and Pluricite, and you get Coursera certification.
868
01:05:32.491 --> 01:05:33.652
Government is paying for this.
869
01:05:34.032 --> 01:05:40.617
You have the president today that has transformed education president, has transformed Nigeria education system in short three years.
870
01:05:41.378 --> 01:05:45.741
I've not spoken about net fund, and I did this, but I'm just talking about the other real things.
871
01:05:46.282 --> 01:05:48.283
We're going to be, we're paying for this.
872
01:05:48.364 --> 01:05:49.745
You get Coursera certification.
873
01:05:50.385 --> 01:05:52.307
You're going to, you get six month training,
874
01:05:53.336 --> 01:06:11.330
in areas of software development methodologies, area of proactive security, which is also known as cyber security, and AI and machine learning, IT automation, national language processing, quantum computing, and we'll train you.
875
01:06:12.611 --> 01:06:13.952
We'll pay for the entire course.
876
01:06:14.971 --> 01:06:16.633
You will pay for your certification.
877
01:06:17.213 --> 01:06:17.894
And guess what?
878
01:06:18.374 --> 01:06:24.420
What we want to achieve with that is that by time, say you did mass comm, you did engineering, you have one of these kids.
879
01:06:24.500 --> 01:06:30.186
Today, in these six areas that I told you, UNESCO estimates from 2012
880
01:06:31.467 --> 01:06:37.372
2025 showed that there are about 2.2 million available vacancies around the world.
881
01:06:37.392 --> 01:06:46.720
What we want to do with that program is that you finish here in Nigeria, we want you to service a company in Hong Kong, Singapore, or anywhere in the world and get paid.
882
01:06:47.060 --> 01:06:52.445
Even if they're paying $2,000 a month, that's big money for a Nigerian environment.
883
01:06:52.805 --> 01:06:54.227
We're also giving them baskets.
884
01:06:54.267 --> 01:06:58.670
I told you we are piloting what we call EBIG.
885
01:06:59.446 --> 01:07:17.578
Entrepreneurial Innovation and Business Incubation Certification to train our students, our tertiary and institutional students, to be entrepreneurs, to be innovators, not just so that they can be job creators and not job seekers.
886
01:07:18.179 --> 01:07:27.085
So it's all being put together so that by the time you go out of these schools, you have skill sets.
887
01:07:27.962 --> 01:07:34.709
to really be able to create jobs or work for yourself.
888
01:07:35.189 --> 01:07:40.174
Or even if you're working for somebody, you'll be able to be more productive.
889
01:07:40.434 --> 01:07:44.198
That person, your employer, will get the highest output from you.
890
01:07:44.999 --> 01:07:48.142
And the way we've done it, we're not focusing on tertiary institution.
891
01:07:48.162 --> 01:07:49.042
We know the feeders.
892
01:07:50.010 --> 01:07:59.538
After primary schools, we've done one of the most extensive curricular review, modernization, competent in the history of our country.
893
01:07:59.919 --> 01:08:07.806
We've changed the curriculum at the primary schools, at the junior secondary schools, and at senior secondary school.
894
01:08:08.066 --> 01:08:13.050
We've made this curriculum more competent-based, outcome-based.
895
01:08:13.811 --> 01:08:15.733
We slashed the theoretical input.
896
01:08:16.689 --> 01:08:17.530
in the curriculum.
897
01:08:17.950 --> 01:08:26.198
So we're training, and we've also infused market-relevant skills training at primary school level, junior secondary school level, senior secondary school level.
898
01:08:26.538 --> 01:08:33.184
So we're going to where those kids are starting their education journey.
899
01:08:33.845 --> 01:08:39.090
So what Rice said about the phenomenon, that's the problem previous government created for us.
900
01:08:39.870 --> 01:08:42.093
That's going to be a thing of the past.
901
01:08:43.031 --> 01:08:44.552
Now, I'm going into the future.
902
01:08:45.112 --> 01:08:47.633
As we're doing this thing, we're doing it in a way that is sustainable.
903
01:08:48.194 --> 01:08:51.415
We're moving more digital training to our primary schools now.
904
01:08:51.455 --> 01:08:58.799
We're putting smart screen in our primary schools, where those kids are improving their digital literacy.
905
01:08:58.959 --> 01:09:11.345
I can't even tell you the number of classrooms we've rehabilitated, the number of new classrooms we've constructed all across the country, and the number of instructional materials that we've put in schools.
906
01:09:12.556 --> 01:09:27.405
And we're also looking at, for the first time in the history of our country, before any publisher will just publish a book, go to a national, an NERDC, National Education Research and Development Commission, get it approved, and then push it, shuffle it down the schools.
907
01:09:27.565 --> 01:09:28.146
As a textbook?
908
01:09:28.326 --> 01:09:28.846
As textbooks.
909
01:09:29.046 --> 01:09:29.606
Wow.
910
01:09:29.626 --> 01:09:34.970
You get a wealth experience, wealth incidences of some English textbooks that had grammatical error in them.
911
01:09:36.470 --> 01:09:40.071
That was the excess of bastardization of an education system.
912
01:09:40.291 --> 01:09:41.072
But now that's gone.
913
01:09:41.292 --> 01:09:45.253
We've started for the first time in the history of this country, book ranking system.
914
01:09:45.693 --> 01:09:52.835
A rigorous ranking process where any books that will be used in a public school would have to be ranked.
915
01:09:53.535 --> 01:09:58.296
And we're only limiting those books to five to three, five to seven for each course subjects.
916
01:09:59.156 --> 01:10:04.098
We're also working so closely with the private schools to ensure that they also use ranked textbooks.
917
01:10:04.438 --> 01:10:14.620
And for the first time in the history of our country, we are also, for the first time in a long time, we're working so collaboratively with the private school system.
918
01:10:14.660 --> 01:10:20.642
Because today, it would amaze you to know the private schools have more students than public schools in the country.
919
01:10:20.662 --> 01:10:21.162
Yeah, of course.
920
01:10:22.202 --> 01:10:22.962
We understand that.
921
01:10:23.142 --> 01:10:24.303
We're using a lot of data.
922
01:10:24.943 --> 01:10:26.464
Data for evidence.
923
01:10:26.704 --> 01:10:28.304
This is evidence-based governance.
924
01:10:28.624 --> 01:10:33.086
We use a lot of data for planning, for intervention, and monitoring the outcome.
925
01:10:33.506 --> 01:10:38.327
It's like what President Bola Mentionem will say, without data, you're flying blind.
926
01:10:38.987 --> 01:10:46.210
Today, for the first time in this whole country, we have the most Nigerian education data infrastructure.
927
01:10:46.950 --> 01:10:49.351
Nigerian education data infrastructure, NEDI.
928
01:10:50.531 --> 01:10:56.893
Nigeria now has the biggest database online cloud-based in Africa.
929
01:10:57.894 --> 01:10:59.895
We've leapfrogged within two years.
930
01:11:00.675 --> 01:11:08.038
Are you talking about a DINEMIS, the Digitized National Education Management Information System, where every single child now has a learner identification number?
931
01:11:08.518 --> 01:11:14.180
In a basic school, in a basic and secondary school, we have about 70 million children.
932
01:11:15.791 --> 01:11:21.873
Today in those schools, we know where each of, and we have about 250,000 schools across the country.
933
01:11:22.274 --> 01:11:23.554
We know where those schools are.
934
01:11:23.994 --> 01:11:26.015
They're geolocated, they're geotagged.
935
01:11:27.736 --> 01:11:32.058
We know with our students, they have linear identification numbers which we've introduced.
936
01:11:32.518 --> 01:11:33.358
It's unique to them.
937
01:11:33.698 --> 01:11:36.859
We can follow them through the entire journey of the educational system.
938
01:11:37.160 --> 01:11:45.283
From when they started primary one, as they progressed to junior secondary, senior secondary school, and to universities.
939
01:11:47.446 --> 01:11:57.936
You know, wait, actually, before we get to rapid fire section, I actually have a question to kind of wrap all these things you're talking about, because you talked about all the achievements, things you have done.
940
01:11:58.196 --> 01:11:59.757
And luckily, you've said fact check.
941
01:11:59.777 --> 01:12:02.560
So people are watching, they can go fact check, which is great.
942
01:12:03.281 --> 01:12:05.503
But now where do you still see a gap?
943
01:12:06.043 --> 01:12:10.124
Where you're like in this, because we're about to go into election season again, right?
944
01:12:10.524 --> 01:12:11.844
People are going to look at all these things.
945
01:12:11.944 --> 01:12:17.146
Where are the gaps or the opportunities you feel still need to be looked at, still need to be worked on?
946
01:12:17.786 --> 01:12:29.489
And also to add to it, I think one of the things I, because I moved to the U.S. in 2006 and in Nigeria, we used to have social studies and even Nigerian history, but it wasn't always as in-depth.
947
01:12:36.130 --> 01:12:37.671
history on them.
948
01:12:37.691 --> 01:12:42.233
Why weren't we being taught this history when I was in Nigeria?
949
01:12:42.253 --> 01:12:50.077
So I think maybe adding your answer to that, it's like things like our history ourselves because this also goes to sharpening the minds of the young people as well.
950
01:12:50.237 --> 01:12:53.219
Yeah, two clever, good questions.
951
01:12:53.259 --> 01:12:54.519
Chika, I'll come to you, the gap.
952
01:12:54.700 --> 01:12:54.900
Yeah.
953
01:12:54.960 --> 01:12:56.400
And you talk about Nigeria history.
954
01:12:56.540 --> 01:13:02.544
Honestly, and you look at it, you look at how, why some kids, young kids are behaving badly today.
955
01:13:03.064 --> 01:13:04.785
And you look at them, it's like they don't have
956
01:13:05.585 --> 01:13:06.946
linkage to this country.
957
01:13:07.887 --> 01:13:14.412
And one major reason for that was the removal of Nigerian history from a curriculum.
958
01:13:14.532 --> 01:13:19.536
I don't know the government in their senses that did that about 15 years ago.
959
01:13:20.116 --> 01:13:24.280
I don't know why any head of state president would accede to that.
960
01:13:24.360 --> 01:13:25.861
So they were not teaching Nigerian history?
961
01:13:25.881 --> 01:13:27.042
Nigerian history was taken out.
962
01:13:27.842 --> 01:13:29.524
You look at when I went to school,
963
01:13:30.044 --> 01:13:36.872
I remember Bono, Kanuri Kingdom, Bono Emperor, Ousmane D'Amfodyo, Shokoto Caliphate, everything.
964
01:13:37.233 --> 01:13:38.214
Madame Tinumbu.
965
01:13:39.215 --> 01:13:41.618
It's still very fresh.
966
01:13:41.758 --> 01:13:44.801
It gave us attachment, history.
967
01:13:45.482 --> 01:13:50.026
to look up to what people, what the heroes and heroines of our countries have done.
968
01:13:50.526 --> 01:13:52.047
How they've kept their country together.
969
01:13:52.468 --> 01:13:55.090
How they've sacrificed their country.
970
01:13:55.210 --> 01:13:57.071
It was part of our upbringing.
971
01:13:57.492 --> 01:14:00.634
But 15 years ago, they stopped Nigerian history.
972
01:14:01.255 --> 01:14:01.875
Totally.
973
01:14:02.296 --> 01:14:04.097
Out of a curriculum.
974
01:14:04.177 --> 01:14:05.118
So none at all.
975
01:14:05.378 --> 01:14:06.519
No Nigerian history was taken up.
976
01:14:06.679 --> 01:14:07.280
But I tell you,
977
01:14:08.166 --> 01:14:13.311
When President Boda Maitrinbu came in, director of the administration, Nigeria history must be back in school.
978
01:14:13.851 --> 01:14:18.275
And I'm happy to report to you today, Nigeria history is back.
979
01:14:18.916 --> 01:14:22.339
At a primary school level, junior secondary school level, and senior secondary school level.
980
01:14:22.359 --> 01:14:32.148
So history, so if we go to a school today- Nigeria history is part of a curriculum, is part of a core subject in a primary school, junior secondary school, and senior secondary school.
981
01:14:32.528 --> 01:14:33.529
Go and fact check me.
982
01:14:35.130 --> 01:14:39.895
I even, because I wanted to be sure, I got some of the textbooks, I read them myself.
983
01:14:41.697 --> 01:14:44.780
The explicit, they captured our Nigerian history.
984
01:14:45.061 --> 01:14:45.782
Even the war?
985
01:14:46.402 --> 01:14:46.642
Yes.
986
01:14:47.243 --> 01:14:47.664
Captured.
987
01:14:48.004 --> 01:14:51.047
Captured all our Nigerian, every single section.
988
01:14:51.367 --> 01:14:53.850
Every single section of our Nigerian history.
989
01:14:53.930 --> 01:14:55.272
Chica, do you know Usman Danfodio?
990
01:14:56.889 --> 01:14:58.829
But now that's what happened.
991
01:14:59.089 --> 01:15:01.410
But Nigeria, why did they have to be president?
992
01:15:01.590 --> 01:15:03.510
Nobody has fixed all this problem.
993
01:15:03.930 --> 01:15:05.151
It's bad.
994
01:15:05.191 --> 01:15:05.811
Yes, bad.
995
01:15:06.031 --> 01:15:10.191
Some ministers said, so I advised the president then to take Nigeria and Israel out of it.
996
01:15:10.451 --> 01:15:16.312
And we've seen the devastation of people not having linkage to their country.
997
01:15:16.732 --> 01:15:21.293
But now today, let me report to the world, Nigeria and Israel is bad, and it's been bad for two years.
998
01:15:21.653 --> 01:15:25.274
Listen, we did it quickly with full expediency.
999
01:15:26.223 --> 01:15:33.535
This is part, you go to America today, American history, it makes every African American proud to be American.
1000
01:15:33.795 --> 01:15:36.199
You go to UK, so it's back.
1001
01:15:36.599 --> 01:15:38.402
And that's part of building a culture.
1002
01:15:39.105 --> 01:15:40.006
building relationship.
1003
01:15:40.266 --> 01:15:44.309
What did the president, what I mentioned, he would do when he became president within 461?
1004
01:15:44.329 --> 01:15:45.730
He changed our national item.
1005
01:15:46.130 --> 01:15:47.231
What was wrong with the other one?
1006
01:15:47.431 --> 01:15:55.057
The national item, our current national item was our original national item that was designed for independence.
1007
01:15:55.477 --> 01:16:00.741
And if you read the script, it had meaning to it.
1008
01:16:01.101 --> 01:16:02.803
There were prayers added to it.
1009
01:16:03.323 --> 01:16:05.965
Military came in, gave us a military-based national item.
1010
01:16:06.605 --> 01:16:07.486
I rise all night.
1011
01:16:07.986 --> 01:16:08.367
No.
1012
01:16:09.810 --> 01:16:15.135
But is it the same sort of, what is the language, the rhythm, the melody?
1013
01:16:15.315 --> 01:16:16.036
The melody.
1014
01:16:16.076 --> 01:16:17.297
This is more melodious.
1015
01:16:17.537 --> 01:16:17.937
Really?
1016
01:16:18.077 --> 01:16:18.798
No melodious.
1017
01:16:19.078 --> 01:16:24.243
But beyond melody, your national item should signify history.
1018
01:16:24.443 --> 01:16:24.723
It's true.
1019
01:16:24.943 --> 01:16:29.688
If you have significance, there should be history behind it.
1020
01:16:30.786 --> 01:16:32.446
And there should be some form of prayers.
1021
01:16:32.726 --> 01:16:38.728
But as you recite those national items, as you recite the national item, you should also be praying for your country.
1022
01:16:38.748 --> 01:16:40.408
Yeah, in America it says one nation under God.
1023
01:16:40.428 --> 01:16:41.689
Yes, under God.
1024
01:16:42.329 --> 01:16:44.749
And that's what, look at this current national item.
1025
01:16:45.009 --> 01:16:45.589
Three parts.
1026
01:16:46.230 --> 01:16:47.690
It meets our entire history.
1027
01:16:47.870 --> 01:16:50.131
Thank you, President Olametro for bringing this back.
1028
01:16:50.791 --> 01:16:55.052
This is how, I tell you, how granular this president is about running the country.
1029
01:16:55.652 --> 01:16:58.673
So I believe I've answered the question on nationality.
1030
01:16:58.753 --> 01:16:59.853
You now talked about the gap.
1031
01:16:59.893 --> 01:17:00.153
Yes.
1032
01:17:00.953 --> 01:17:13.341
I've told you a lot of accomplishment that we've done with the President Bonamette Tsunibu has done with his Nigeria Renewal Agenda for Education powered by the Nigeria Educational Sector Renewal Initiative,
1033
01:17:14.908 --> 01:17:20.449
There's some gaps and one of the gap is the number of out of school children that we have.
1034
01:17:20.809 --> 01:17:22.149
Out of school children?
1035
01:17:22.189 --> 01:17:22.909
Out of school children.
1036
01:17:22.929 --> 01:17:23.670
What's the number today?
1037
01:17:23.750 --> 01:17:29.991
Every single child that is out of school is still too much.
1038
01:17:30.931 --> 01:17:39.012
But then, people have used bad data to Kuniku, Nigeria, to Kolo, Nigeria.
1039
01:17:39.712 --> 01:17:42.273
Nigeria has one of the highest number of out of school children in the world.
1040
01:17:43.204 --> 01:17:50.286
They're saying, depending on data you're looking at, some data says 15 million or 17.5 million out of school children.
1041
01:17:50.426 --> 01:17:51.507
50 million?
1042
01:17:51.887 --> 01:17:52.267
15.
1043
01:17:52.287 --> 01:17:55.408
15 million or 17.5 million out of school children.
1044
01:17:55.428 --> 01:17:55.668
15 million.
1045
01:17:55.688 --> 01:18:00.930
But I can tell you today, we do not have 15 million out of school children.
1046
01:18:01.130 --> 01:18:01.410
Okay.
1047
01:18:02.230 --> 01:18:03.051
And we're going to prove it.
1048
01:18:03.331 --> 01:18:06.012
We're working on clear data to do this.
1049
01:18:06.072 --> 01:18:10.093
And I'll tell you, and I have early results to tell you.
1050
01:18:11.712 --> 01:18:21.675
By the time we complete a full count, which I'm going to talk to you about in a minute, our outdoor school population will be about 7 to 8 million.
1051
01:18:22.475 --> 01:18:24.796
But it's still too many.
1052
01:18:26.136 --> 01:18:27.037
It's still too many.
1053
01:18:27.177 --> 01:18:28.977
And I'll tell you what we're doing about that.
1054
01:18:29.397 --> 01:18:33.218
But I want the international committee to know that we don't have that number.
1055
01:18:33.238 --> 01:18:33.839
We're using data.
1056
01:18:33.879 --> 01:18:34.879
It's a different day.
1057
01:18:35.796 --> 01:18:37.416
UNESCO should not be giving us that data.
1058
01:18:37.557 --> 01:18:38.917
UNICEF should not be giving us that data.
1059
01:18:39.357 --> 01:18:48.360
We should be giving us, we should be telling the world our own data, but data that is verifiable.
1060
01:18:48.380 --> 01:18:57.262
That's why we started with that Nigeria education data infrastructure as well as a digitized Nigeria education management information system.
1061
01:18:57.802 --> 01:19:03.444
Now, the data they're quoting, it's the headline estimated population.
1062
01:19:04.356 --> 01:19:10.807
We have not had a population count, a census count, in the country since 2004.
1063
01:19:10.867 --> 01:19:13.672
22 years ago was our last census.
1064
01:19:14.774 --> 01:19:16.657
The census count that we did in Nigeria.
1065
01:19:17.376 --> 01:19:22.359
So every year, there was an estimate that population is going by so many percentage.
1066
01:19:22.919 --> 01:19:33.625
So the top estimated census number is what they're now estimating that, okay, as a subscription, there are 10% of this number or 8.5%.
1067
01:19:34.346 --> 01:19:35.647
Those are not accurate count.
1068
01:19:36.247 --> 01:19:37.488
We've broken that fallacy.
1069
01:19:38.885 --> 01:19:39.505
for a change.
1070
01:19:40.145 --> 01:19:45.067
Can I tell you why does it have to be President ,, fixing all this problem?
1071
01:19:46.048 --> 01:19:51.870
But I'll repeat, President also said, he inherit all the assets, inherit all the liabilities.
1072
01:19:52.190 --> 01:19:54.370
I can begin to vent and vent.
1073
01:19:54.611 --> 01:19:55.911
President is not venting about this.
1074
01:19:56.291 --> 01:19:57.472
He know this is his job to do.
1075
01:19:58.252 --> 01:20:01.433
Now, we're using estimated numbers.
1076
01:20:01.973 --> 01:20:03.374
But there could be things that we'll do.
1077
01:20:03.794 --> 01:20:07.155
And I'll tell you about sensors and out of scope count.
1078
01:20:08.191 --> 01:20:13.734
If you want to count the number of adult school children, the gold standard of counting is census.
1079
01:20:14.954 --> 01:20:16.975
Hopefully, we'll be doing census in the next few years.
1080
01:20:17.556 --> 01:20:20.417
But then we can't wait to do census count.
1081
01:20:20.897 --> 01:20:26.980
The next close to gold standard is what's called General Astros Survey on the Grid.
1082
01:20:28.261 --> 01:20:29.061
You map it out.
1083
01:20:29.581 --> 01:20:36.645
And that tool, the instrument that you use for that, has been developed by our National Bureau of Statistics.
1084
01:20:37.732 --> 01:20:48.881
Cardinal State did the first, most recently, last year, did general household count, a general household survey on the grid.
1085
01:20:49.782 --> 01:20:57.648
The estimated out of screen that the Cardinal State government had before that count was about 585,000.
1086
01:20:58.569 --> 01:21:01.371
But when they counted, today they've counted,
1087
01:21:02.398 --> 01:21:08.805
All those art of culture, they know their households, they know where they are, all geotagged, all geolocated.
1088
01:21:09.946 --> 01:21:10.407
Guess what?
1089
01:21:10.527 --> 01:21:15.372
That number was about 190,000, a debtor of almost 300,000.
1090
01:21:16.564 --> 01:21:17.965
What's the data around?
1091
01:21:17.985 --> 01:21:19.627
Delta of almost 300,000.
1092
01:21:19.687 --> 01:21:20.367
Yeah.
1093
01:21:20.547 --> 01:21:21.468
Delta changed.
1094
01:21:21.488 --> 01:21:22.289
Delta, okay.
1095
01:21:22.369 --> 01:21:23.570
Delta of almost 300,000.
1096
01:21:24.230 --> 01:21:32.778
From the estimates, when we had the census estimate for Cardinal State out of Scruti-Glen, it said about 585,000 out of Scruti-Glen.
1097
01:21:33.038 --> 01:21:39.843
But when they did a general household survey count on the grid, that number fell to 190,000.
1098
01:21:40.104 --> 01:21:40.304
Yeah.
1099
01:21:40.684 --> 01:21:44.767
So we don't, and that's why I'm telling you, and we've done the same thing with Cardinal State.
1100
01:21:45.535 --> 01:21:48.917
Karno State on the survey had 1.2 million.
1101
01:21:49.417 --> 01:21:56.342
When Karno State did his general outsold survey, it was about 900,000, a difference of 300,000.
1102
01:21:57.142 --> 01:22:03.626
Zamfara and Shokutu have also done their own count, significantly different from the estimate.
1103
01:22:04.046 --> 01:22:13.012
But now what we're doing is that, okay, we're working now to commission Nigeria a degree of statistics to now do these
1104
01:22:14.145 --> 01:22:22.751
Also, out of school children, general also count on the grid across all the 36 states of the Federation, including FCT.
1105
01:22:23.752 --> 01:22:27.114
So I'll tell you, we've looked for that money to do it.
1106
01:22:27.495 --> 01:22:31.978
But then, this is what really was so surprising to me.
1107
01:22:33.143 --> 01:22:39.287
When I met with the DG of Nigeria Board of Statistics, they do an amazing job.
1108
01:22:39.628 --> 01:22:40.808
They're extremely good.
1109
01:22:41.149 --> 01:22:43.690
You have a lot of people that are smart.
1110
01:22:44.391 --> 01:22:56.379
And their data, data collection, data gathering, data analysis, and data disaggregation and reporting done using the best global standard.
1111
01:22:57.120 --> 01:23:00.182
So at MBS, National Board of Statistics is well respected.
1112
01:23:00.845 --> 01:23:16.174
So when I met with the DG of the National Bureau of Statistics, Prince Adeyemi, about doing this contracting MBS to do this art of school camp for us, he went to put the budget together.
1113
01:23:16.815 --> 01:23:17.495
I was afraid.
1114
01:23:18.075 --> 01:23:25.560
I told the General Arts Council survey that it was going to come back to, as on the grid, will be tens of billions.
1115
01:23:26.870 --> 01:23:33.695
And by the time we came back, it's still in the billion, but something that it's affordable.
1116
01:23:34.096 --> 01:23:36.698
So I sat down there, oh, affordable.
1117
01:23:37.338 --> 01:23:46.765
I said that, oh, people that have been wanting to help Nigeria about this menace of out of school children, this is affordable.
1118
01:23:46.805 --> 01:23:50.468
Why didn't they pay supporters to do this out of school count?
1119
01:23:50.488 --> 01:23:53.651
So that we know, but this count, it's no estimate.
1120
01:23:53.831 --> 01:23:54.571
The estimate that
1121
01:23:55.472 --> 01:23:57.173
Everybody's been using based on the census.
1122
01:23:57.194 --> 01:24:00.656
They say there's small area survey, there's some small area survey.
1123
01:24:00.736 --> 01:24:06.861
It just tells you where the color and intensity of where you have high out of school children.
1124
01:24:07.482 --> 01:24:12.146
But it doesn't tell you the location where those students are.
1125
01:24:12.426 --> 01:24:15.048
So if you want to intervene, you don't know the households.
1126
01:24:15.849 --> 01:24:24.175
So if you do your general household survey on the grid, you know the household, you know where those kids are between five to 17 years.
1127
01:24:25.710 --> 01:24:26.971
to count the out of school children.
1128
01:24:27.431 --> 01:24:30.772
Now I said, if they really wanted to help us, they could have just paid for this.
1129
01:24:31.232 --> 01:24:36.795
But then using this data, as many data gives us much more higher out of school children.
1130
01:24:37.295 --> 01:24:38.315
That's what people want.
1131
01:24:38.816 --> 01:24:43.077
Nigeria is dying from a large number of out of school children, but that's not the case today.
1132
01:24:43.418 --> 01:24:44.578
What about the Amagerie too?
1133
01:24:44.698 --> 01:24:45.819
Is there a myth around that too?
1134
01:24:45.839 --> 01:24:47.359
These also include the Amageries as well.
1135
01:24:47.379 --> 01:24:48.700
Is there a myth around that too or no?
1136
01:24:49.135 --> 01:24:49.715
There's a meeting.
1137
01:24:49.735 --> 01:24:51.416
I'll tell you the meeting about our majority.
1138
01:24:51.656 --> 01:24:53.558
I think we've fixed that with UNESCO now.
1139
01:24:54.298 --> 01:24:59.981
Now, with this out of school, now, of course, we have to take the bull by the horn.
1140
01:25:00.161 --> 01:25:00.822
It's a problem.
1141
01:25:01.642 --> 01:25:06.125
It's not the international what countries to fix for us.
1142
01:25:06.165 --> 01:25:07.866
It's not the international community to fix for us.
1143
01:25:08.266 --> 01:25:09.567
We have to fix our own problems.
1144
01:25:10.247 --> 01:25:12.588
So we're taking the bull by the horn now.
1145
01:25:13.229 --> 01:25:14.469
We're now doing...
1146
01:25:15.510 --> 01:25:19.574
Claire, count of out-of-school children.
1147
01:25:20.255 --> 01:25:26.101
We're about to sign the Memorandum of the Standing with Nigeria Bureau of Statistics to do the count for us.
1148
01:25:26.602 --> 01:25:32.628
It will take about eight months, and I can tell you, by the time we come with the full count, we know where those kids are.
1149
01:25:33.229 --> 01:25:36.873
Beyond just counting, we also have to provide, we also have to build...
1150
01:25:38.013 --> 01:25:46.495
strategies, social support, social intervention strategies together to bring those kids from out of school back in school.
1151
01:25:47.335 --> 01:25:50.056
Now, we've done well also.
1152
01:25:51.036 --> 01:25:56.758
Since the advent of President Bola and Mertinubu, we've moved over 1 million kids out of school back to school.
1153
01:25:57.900 --> 01:26:11.072
The other reason why I tell you that we don't have that high number of out-of-school children is that our imaginary and out-of-school commission have done some door-to-door, going to some state of the Federation.
1154
01:26:11.612 --> 01:26:16.616
They went to some states, mostly some in the East, they can't find out-of-school children.
1155
01:26:17.357 --> 01:26:18.177
I know the burden.
1156
01:26:18.698 --> 01:26:20.319
I'm not oblivious of that fact.
1157
01:26:20.699 --> 01:26:25.141
The highest burden of out of Scrooge today is mostly in the Northeast and Northwest.
1158
01:26:25.861 --> 01:26:30.704
But the out of Scrooge today in every geopolitical zone in the country.
1159
01:26:31.244 --> 01:26:35.646
Some of these geopolitical zones that we started with, we can't find out of Scrooge today.
1160
01:26:36.207 --> 01:26:40.269
I don't believe we have 15 million out of Scrooge, 15 million out of Scrooge today.
1161
01:26:40.309 --> 01:26:43.951
I think I can't, we'll be about 7-8 million, but it's still too much.
1162
01:26:44.351 --> 01:26:46.512
But we have interventions that we put in place,
1163
01:26:47.172 --> 01:26:50.956
that we've put in place to reduce, to move these kids back to school.
1164
01:26:51.236 --> 01:26:53.839
And not just moving them back to school, keep them in school.
1165
01:26:54.139 --> 01:27:00.125
And we've been very successful so far in moving about 1 million children off the street back in school.
1166
01:27:00.646 --> 01:27:03.168
Now, to talk about the imageries.
1167
01:27:03.669 --> 01:27:07.072
The imageries are a unique set of students.
1168
01:27:08.033 --> 01:27:09.614
They go to school.
1169
01:27:10.375 --> 01:27:13.619
They have been a captive audience.
1170
01:27:14.840 --> 01:27:18.164
They go to school, but they read Quranic.
1171
01:27:18.224 --> 01:27:20.046
It was a more Quranic recitation.
1172
01:27:20.486 --> 01:27:23.510
But since they have schools, they're going to these schools, they're there.
1173
01:27:24.925 --> 01:27:31.187
What we're now doing is that we're deploying numeracy and literacy and skills to those schools.
1174
01:27:31.207 --> 01:27:34.908
You have some of the state governors in the northern city, they're doing very well now.
1175
01:27:35.348 --> 01:27:40.590
They now have board of emergency education commission.
1176
01:27:40.870 --> 01:27:44.311
Now they've mapped out all those emergency schools.
1177
01:27:47.072 --> 01:27:49.893
As we now do, we're now designing program to support them.
1178
01:27:50.213 --> 01:27:59.356
Some of the states have started, they're giving them some support to help them rehab their classes, provide solar, and then also some financial support.
1179
01:27:59.817 --> 01:28:08.099
Our strategy with that is to ensure that they start putting some numeracy, literacy, and skills as part of the education.
1180
01:28:08.500 --> 01:28:15.442
Now UNESCO, I think they now have a new classification now of classifying those kids in their majority.
1181
01:28:16.062 --> 01:28:17.363
majority schools.
1182
01:28:17.884 --> 01:28:27.710
Once you have numeracy and literacy and high skills, numeracy and literacy is mostly, you'll be counted as not part of out-of-school population.
1183
01:28:28.571 --> 01:28:38.077
The last question I wanted to ask before we transition to our rapid-fire segment is there are people who are going to be watching and say, okay, what about safety in schools?
1184
01:28:38.358 --> 01:28:40.419
Obviously, you have had issues with security and,
1185
01:28:41.140 --> 01:28:42.602
kidnappings and things like that.
1186
01:28:42.682 --> 01:28:44.705
Now, obviously, Secrecia is not under your department.
1187
01:28:45.066 --> 01:28:52.957
Well, what measures and what advice can you share as to what the government is doing to try and tackle that as well?
1188
01:28:53.222 --> 01:28:57.425
It is the responsibility of the government to keep every child safe in school.
1189
01:28:57.825 --> 01:28:59.126
It's not the responsibility of the child.
1190
01:28:59.306 --> 01:29:05.331
The country owes our children a secured environment in school.
1191
01:29:06.031 --> 01:29:10.034
And this government, led by President Bola Metubu, does not take that lightly.
1192
01:29:10.674 --> 01:29:16.318
And that's why we've moved quickly to really transform our safe school initiative.
1193
01:29:16.799 --> 01:29:19.841
And I'll tell you some of the problems that happened in the past.
1194
01:29:20.802 --> 01:29:24.826
And you see, people should give this president a lot of credit.
1195
01:29:25.406 --> 01:29:35.175
We've moved Nigeria, governance in Nigeria, into a more form of continuum, where things are done synergistically, where things are done to create impact.
1196
01:29:35.315 --> 01:29:42.902
Where government, you now have a one government approach, where agencies, ministries are talking together to create impact.
1197
01:29:42.982 --> 01:29:43.623
We've moved.
1198
01:29:44.463 --> 01:29:54.588
from ad hoc approach to governance to a full-fledged governing structure put together by President Bola Mechunumbo.
1199
01:29:55.109 --> 01:29:58.190
You remember the Chibok guest kidnapping?
1200
01:29:58.450 --> 01:30:03.273
The international community came, oh, Chibok came with all money and everything.
1201
01:30:03.673 --> 01:30:06.835
So they went and domiciled the safe school financing, ministry of finance.
1202
01:30:08.197 --> 01:30:12.760
Why should safe school financing, safe school, then being in the middle of finance is education.
1203
01:30:13.440 --> 01:30:25.308
And even before this incident that you had, some of the incidents that you had of kidnapping in school, we moved quickly to transfer that and really set up a full safe school department.
1204
01:30:25.368 --> 01:30:30.671
We moved from a unit in the middle of education to a full safe school department.
1205
01:30:31.091 --> 01:30:34.113
And we've cascaded that to the state as well for them to set up their...
1206
01:30:34.473 --> 01:30:37.335
safe school unit, safe school department.
1207
01:30:37.355 --> 01:30:39.036
That's part of a safe school initiative.
1208
01:30:39.537 --> 01:30:41.478
We're also using technology as well.
1209
01:30:42.319 --> 01:30:58.230
I told you about our digitized Nigeria education management information system, where today we now have all schools in the country, primary schools, junior secondary school, and senior secondary school, all geotagged, geolocated.
1210
01:30:58.591 --> 01:31:00.292
We know where the coordinates are.
1211
01:31:01.475 --> 01:31:08.281
I can tell you now, if you're going to a natural gamma school in Akhmer, I can tell you the geo-coordinates.
1212
01:31:08.681 --> 01:31:10.923
We now have that as part of the dashboard.
1213
01:31:11.383 --> 01:31:13.565
We build a safe school modem.
1214
01:31:14.426 --> 01:31:17.248
Digitally, we're now collecting some data.
1215
01:31:17.968 --> 01:31:19.169
on schools across the country.
1216
01:31:19.189 --> 01:31:20.069
This is being done now.
1217
01:31:20.269 --> 01:31:21.750
We are part of our annual school collection.
1218
01:31:22.090 --> 01:31:24.011
I'm not telling you, this is not rhetorics.
1219
01:31:24.071 --> 01:31:25.112
I'm not telling you plans.
1220
01:31:25.432 --> 01:31:27.133
These are things that we're implementing already.
1221
01:31:27.673 --> 01:31:37.558
So we're collecting safe school data report on each school where we now classify those schools into low-risk, medium-risk, medium-risk, and high-risk schools.
1222
01:31:39.029 --> 01:31:47.559
We also know that with this Safe School Initiative, creating a Safe School environment is not only using technology, but can motor.
1223
01:31:47.939 --> 01:31:51.924
There are also going to be collaboration with the security operators as well.
1224
01:31:54.226 --> 01:32:04.713
We're working with the Nigeria Office of the Nigeria NSA, the National Security Advisor, as part of our collaboration.
1225
01:32:05.174 --> 01:32:09.256
The DJ of DSS is part of us.
1226
01:32:09.297 --> 01:32:12.919
We're building and the Civil Defense Corps as well.
1227
01:32:13.139 --> 01:32:14.860
They're part of the Nigerian police.
1228
01:32:15.281 --> 01:32:16.902
We're working together with the security
1229
01:32:17.602 --> 01:32:24.285
with the emphasis to put our whole entire Safe School Initiative strategy together.
1230
01:32:25.145 --> 01:32:36.989
We're investing more in building perimeter fencing, investing more in putting solar at our schools, investing more in putting watch facilities at a school.
1231
01:32:37.149 --> 01:32:42.371
Those are all part of our Safe School Initiative strategy because it's not beyond.
1232
01:32:42.391 --> 01:32:44.332
You have to make the school safe.
1233
01:32:45.317 --> 01:32:50.521
We're also putting strategies together where we have a security group that will be sent to these schools.
1234
01:32:51.141 --> 01:32:57.346
And more importantly, where we now have to put technology, where we have panic button at these schools.
1235
01:32:57.726 --> 01:33:05.132
That we train the students what they need to do when they feel that there's an obvious danger to press panic button.
1236
01:33:05.452 --> 01:33:10.356
We're training the teachers as well, the academic and non-academic staff at these schools as well.
1237
01:33:11.406 --> 01:33:23.772
I can tell you beyond some of the schools that are in the peripheral part where these bandits, these bastards have tried to take advantage to blackmail the government, but they're mistaking.
1238
01:33:23.952 --> 01:33:26.753
And let me use the opportunity to also talk to the bandits.
1239
01:33:27.254 --> 01:33:29.395
You're making a great mistake of your life.
1240
01:33:29.975 --> 01:33:33.598
President Bola Meri Chinubu is not a person that you can blackmail.
1241
01:33:34.018 --> 01:33:37.160
The president does not take blackmail.
1242
01:33:37.220 --> 01:33:39.261
He doesn't take it kindly.
1243
01:33:39.982 --> 01:33:41.823
He will defeat you.
1244
01:33:42.624 --> 01:33:48.828
And the president has put every strategy to defeat these bandits.
1245
01:33:49.509 --> 01:33:50.009
It's better.
1246
01:33:50.029 --> 01:33:52.010
My advice is to stop this nonsense.
1247
01:33:52.491 --> 01:33:54.192
You can't play with the last of our children.
1248
01:33:55.402 --> 01:33:56.503
They're innocent.
1249
01:33:57.263 --> 01:33:58.444
They need to be educated.
1250
01:33:59.445 --> 01:34:02.727
And we're confronting and attacking these terrorists.
1251
01:34:03.207 --> 01:34:04.088
And the government is winning.
1252
01:34:04.908 --> 01:34:07.950
Whatever they think they can do, the government is winning.
1253
01:34:08.411 --> 01:34:13.334
And we continue to work to ensure the safety of every single Nigerian child in that school.
1254
01:34:13.854 --> 01:34:18.558
So we have a robust safe school initiative strategy that we're working on.
1255
01:34:19.038 --> 01:34:20.039
And we've moved away.
1256
01:34:20.879 --> 01:34:24.600
from depending on international community to fund our school to be safe.
1257
01:34:25.101 --> 01:34:27.321
We're using our domestic resource mobilization.
1258
01:34:27.341 --> 01:34:29.422
We're mobilizing resources domestically.
1259
01:34:30.082 --> 01:34:35.644
Domestic resource mobilization to improve security, safety at schools.
1260
01:34:35.684 --> 01:34:37.925
That's why we can be sustainable.
1261
01:34:37.945 --> 01:34:39.706
That's why we can build a sustainable process.
1262
01:34:41.245 --> 01:34:43.166
So we're going to transition into a rapid fire.
1263
01:34:43.306 --> 01:34:47.449
This is basically the first thoughts that comes to mind with the question that we ask you, right?
1264
01:34:47.889 --> 01:34:51.331
So we're going to start easy one, Chicago or Lagos?
1265
01:34:52.331 --> 01:34:54.693
Today, you want me to be honest with you?
1266
01:34:54.733 --> 01:34:55.313
Yeah, honestly.
1267
01:34:55.433 --> 01:35:00.476
And please, I'll be utterly, absolutely, sincerely honest with you.
1268
01:35:00.716 --> 01:35:01.797
Yeah.
1269
01:35:01.817 --> 01:35:03.578
Unequivocally, Lagos.
1270
01:35:04.614 --> 01:35:05.235
Okay, why?
1271
01:35:05.515 --> 01:35:05.956
Nigeria.
1272
01:35:06.356 --> 01:35:09.020
This is, the quality of life here is great.
1273
01:35:09.260 --> 01:35:10.622
Beyond the quality of life.
1274
01:35:10.642 --> 01:35:11.843
Yeah.
1275
01:35:11.923 --> 01:35:14.667
You're doing God's work.
1276
01:35:14.987 --> 01:35:17.050
Whatever you do, you don't have to be a minister.
1277
01:35:17.630 --> 01:35:19.252
You don't have to be a doctor.
1278
01:35:20.394 --> 01:35:20.974
Whatever you do.
1279
01:35:22.750 --> 01:35:25.734
In your country, you're impacting lives.
1280
01:35:26.515 --> 01:35:29.298
That's why I tell people in diaspora, come back home.
1281
01:35:29.959 --> 01:35:31.020
You're going to miss out.
1282
01:35:31.661 --> 01:35:38.149
I'm extremely unapologetic about this because I'm positioned.
1283
01:35:39.093 --> 01:35:39.754
to say this.
1284
01:35:40.154 --> 01:35:41.695
I lived in America.
1285
01:35:42.496 --> 01:35:43.597
God was kind to me.
1286
01:35:44.998 --> 01:35:50.423
I'm back in Nigeria, but I didn't just stay in America, nor detached from my home.
1287
01:35:50.843 --> 01:35:56.829
I think some of the problems with this diaspora, diasporians, they get abroad, they say, to help with my country.
1288
01:35:57.807 --> 01:36:00.451
And now they want to justify their continuous existence there.
1289
01:36:01.092 --> 01:36:02.414
They don't see any good in Nigeria.
1290
01:36:02.615 --> 01:36:03.676
You're missing out.
1291
01:36:04.197 --> 01:36:08.283
You're missing out of big opportunities that are happening in Nigeria.
1292
01:36:08.484 --> 01:36:10.206
My advice to you, come back home.
1293
01:36:10.928 --> 01:36:12.330
You cannot have it better.
1294
01:36:14.044 --> 01:36:15.425
than anywhere else.
1295
01:36:15.485 --> 01:36:17.727
You cannot have it better anywhere else than in Nigeria.
1296
01:36:17.967 --> 01:36:19.948
And I'm being honest to the aspirants.
1297
01:36:20.549 --> 01:36:25.533
And it tells me, talk to some of your friends, the ones that are reticent, that won't come, force them to come.
1298
01:36:25.553 --> 01:36:31.297
By the time they come to Nigeria and say, wow, Lagos, Abuja, Potakot, Kano, this is great.
1299
01:36:32.893 --> 01:36:35.835
Unequivocal answer, yes.
1300
01:36:36.756 --> 01:36:38.657
Because you get more fulfillment.
1301
01:36:39.037 --> 01:36:40.218
You're serving your people.
1302
01:36:40.939 --> 01:36:43.600
The quality, you wake up, you see the people that you look alike.
1303
01:36:44.001 --> 01:36:45.582
You see people that see the same language.
1304
01:36:46.022 --> 01:36:49.004
You see the people that when you serve, they appreciate you.
1305
01:36:49.024 --> 01:36:49.805
They say thank you.
1306
01:36:50.645 --> 01:36:52.887
You don't see people that are condescending to you.
1307
01:36:53.967 --> 01:37:02.254
Whatever work you do, teacher, even if you're a bricklayer, even if you come back home, and now there are enormous opportunities here in Nigeria.
1308
01:37:02.894 --> 01:37:03.375
Guess what?
1309
01:37:04.115 --> 01:37:06.397
I was reading the Blue Block article the other day.
1310
01:37:06.858 --> 01:37:12.703
It said, countries missed out on the biggest stock exchange return.
1311
01:37:12.943 --> 01:37:13.543
Yeah, Nigeria.
1312
01:37:13.964 --> 01:37:14.604
Yes, Nigeria.
1313
01:37:14.724 --> 01:37:15.625
In the last one year.
1314
01:37:15.985 --> 01:37:22.651
Because it was like, looking back on it, even the big, some of the hedge fund managers, the hedge funds, the portfolio managers, oh,
1315
01:37:23.816 --> 01:37:28.239
The biggest return, it was Bloomberg article.
1316
01:37:28.779 --> 01:37:29.920
Look at what's happening now.
1317
01:37:29.960 --> 01:37:31.461
So diaspora, please come back.
1318
01:37:31.921 --> 01:37:32.642
Huge opportunity.
1319
01:37:32.662 --> 01:37:34.143
This country is undergoing a renaissance.
1320
01:37:34.583 --> 01:37:43.969
And I'll tell you, as each day, week, month, and years go by, it becomes more expensive.
1321
01:37:44.890 --> 01:37:45.370
Look at that.
1322
01:37:45.390 --> 01:37:47.091
Go to the federal is going to list now.
1323
01:37:48.572 --> 01:37:49.533
Oversubscribed.
1324
01:37:50.974 --> 01:37:52.035
Oversubscribed.
1325
01:37:53.100 --> 01:38:02.247
And when you now see foreigners coming to your country, Chinese, Europeans, Indians, you go on the flight, they're the ones coming in droves to Nigeria.
1326
01:38:02.787 --> 01:38:05.189
Do you think they like Nigeria more than you?
1327
01:38:05.329 --> 01:38:06.249
It's true, though.
1328
01:38:06.329 --> 01:38:07.951
Do you think they like Nigeria more than you?
1329
01:38:07.971 --> 01:38:09.432
They're coming for the opportunities.
1330
01:38:10.124 --> 01:38:10.664
Lebanese.
1331
01:38:11.164 --> 01:38:13.425
So don't now let it get to a point.
1332
01:38:14.225 --> 01:38:19.926
Five years from now, ten years from now, you're whining, you're complaining.
1333
01:38:20.666 --> 01:38:24.087
People have taken away opportunities that belong to you.
1334
01:38:25.047 --> 01:38:26.748
You need to seize on this time.
1335
01:38:27.548 --> 01:38:31.129
Come, take those opportunities and run with it.
1336
01:38:31.509 --> 01:38:32.789
Hang on with those opportunities.
1337
01:38:33.569 --> 01:38:37.490
What's one thing Africa needs to stop waiting for the West to validate?
1338
01:38:38.862 --> 01:38:40.286
No, we don't need to wait.
1339
01:38:40.306 --> 01:38:41.629
Let me tell you something.
1340
01:38:42.411 --> 01:38:46.943
We have Africa is the most continent that is positioned today.
1341
01:38:48.868 --> 01:38:52.730
to dominate the world 10, 20, 30 years from now, if we do it well.
1342
01:38:53.331 --> 01:38:55.012
Now I'm telling you, Nigeria is doing its own bit.
1343
01:38:55.032 --> 01:39:00.616
This president is positioning Nigeria and Nigerians to lead the world.
1344
01:39:01.316 --> 01:39:10.022
We have one thing today in the continent of Africa that is lacking in every single other continent in the world, and you can recreate it.
1345
01:39:10.843 --> 01:39:11.803
We have the population.
1346
01:39:12.264 --> 01:39:12.964
We have the good.
1347
01:39:13.464 --> 01:39:15.266
We have not just having the population,
1348
01:39:15.946 --> 01:39:18.527
Not aging population, we have the youth.
1349
01:39:19.527 --> 01:39:24.088
The average age in Africa today is about 23 or 25 years.
1350
01:39:25.088 --> 01:39:28.209
Look at North America, flat population gold.
1351
01:39:28.709 --> 01:39:30.450
Europe, flat population gold.
1352
01:39:30.890 --> 01:39:32.450
Asia, flat population gold.
1353
01:39:32.851 --> 01:39:34.811
Japan, declining population gold.
1354
01:39:35.931 --> 01:39:37.472
Where are they going to get the manpower of the world?
1355
01:39:37.912 --> 01:39:41.733
The next manpower to drive the economy, to continue to drive the economy.
1356
01:39:43.328 --> 01:39:43.908
We have it.
1357
01:39:44.609 --> 01:39:48.270
But then, not just population for the sake of population.
1358
01:39:48.991 --> 01:39:57.615
That's why you have to train these young people very well, give them high quality education, and skill them well to drive the world.
1359
01:39:58.395 --> 01:40:04.038
So it's not about other countries driving narratives.
1360
01:40:04.098 --> 01:40:07.140
We are in a vantage position.
1361
01:40:08.326 --> 01:40:10.767
as Africans to drive our narrative.
1362
01:40:10.987 --> 01:40:11.507
We have it.
1363
01:40:11.927 --> 01:40:16.968
Would America turn today and change their population growth to 3.2% or 1.2%?
1364
01:40:17.048 --> 01:40:17.748
It won't happen.
1365
01:40:18.409 --> 01:40:29.811
Would Japan, that is China, that is suffering, experiencing declining population growth, can they just open the faucet or turn the wheel of the clock the other way?
1366
01:40:30.091 --> 01:40:30.351
No.
1367
01:40:30.852 --> 01:40:32.292
It's impossible for them to do.
1368
01:40:33.032 --> 01:40:34.534
We're poised to do that.
1369
01:40:34.914 --> 01:40:41.921
And more so, we have the natural resources, we have the rare hearts in this country, in this continent.
1370
01:40:42.682 --> 01:40:47.527
We just need to really now create good regulated framework
1371
01:40:49.357 --> 01:40:50.938
curb the manners of corruption.
1372
01:40:51.718 --> 01:40:53.399
Look, and this is what this president is doing.
1373
01:40:53.979 --> 01:40:57.300
Corruption is also, this is what people don't know.
1374
01:40:57.840 --> 01:41:11.746
In Nigeria, corruption has significantly declined under President Bola Meitunubu because president would appoint you, give you position, and he would say, go do your work with zero interference.
1375
01:41:12.306 --> 01:41:13.326
Look at AFCC today.
1376
01:41:13.346 --> 01:41:14.707
I was reading a report.
1377
01:41:15.932 --> 01:41:26.419
the number of seizures, asset seizures and forfeiture that this EFCC-led damage that Luke Koyede has done in three years, never recorded before.
1378
01:41:26.859 --> 01:41:32.783
I think I saw one number, almost 1,700 of houses have been seized.
1379
01:41:33.363 --> 01:41:33.944
And guess what?
1380
01:41:34.564 --> 01:41:35.745
Beyond those things being seized,
1381
01:41:36.873 --> 01:41:38.415
they're turning to national value.
1382
01:41:38.555 --> 01:41:40.698
It's not that you seize it, you share it among yourself.
1383
01:41:41.379 --> 01:41:46.005
Look at what President just did yesterday at the FEC.
1384
01:41:46.305 --> 01:41:55.397
President directed that all six funds of EFCC should be sent to NERF Fund to support the education of our children.
1385
01:41:56.883 --> 01:42:00.304
All this president has also directed the Minister of Housing.
1386
01:42:00.744 --> 01:42:01.665
Actually, the president met.
1387
01:42:02.125 --> 01:42:04.225
These are important, the import.
1388
01:42:04.625 --> 01:42:06.426
President Bonham met to new places on these things.
1389
01:42:06.986 --> 01:42:07.786
It's very granular.
1390
01:42:08.147 --> 01:42:15.369
Just on Tuesday or Monday, this week, Monday or Tuesday, he met with both the EFCC chairman and the housing minister.
1391
01:42:16.049 --> 01:42:23.891
All these assets, he wants to convert those houses to public use for citizens of Nigeria to benefit from those houses.
1392
01:42:24.812 --> 01:42:25.652
President also said that
1393
01:42:27.195 --> 01:42:37.859
The housing minister should go put some budget together, all the housing that is being built, he wants to mobilize money to complete that, to release more houses in public to use.
1394
01:42:38.820 --> 01:42:44.702
So this is Nigeria Renaissance and it could be African Renaissance.
1395
01:42:46.343 --> 01:42:47.703
I want to give you an easy question.
1396
01:42:48.163 --> 01:42:49.584
What's your favorite Nigerian food?
1397
01:42:50.470 --> 01:42:51.451
Ah, that's so easy.
1398
01:42:51.831 --> 01:42:52.732
That's so easy.
1399
01:42:53.212 --> 01:42:56.755
I'll tell you, beans and dodo.
1400
01:42:57.075 --> 01:42:58.997
Really?
1401
01:42:59.177 --> 01:42:59.918
No, just beans.
1402
01:43:00.018 --> 01:43:00.518
Just beans.
1403
01:43:00.538 --> 01:43:03.020
Yeah, just beans and fire plantain.
1404
01:43:03.240 --> 01:43:05.142
Who makes, like, your favorite beans?
1405
01:43:05.902 --> 01:43:06.783
Of course, you want to put me...
1406
01:43:06.903 --> 01:43:07.583
I want to see.
1407
01:43:08.284 --> 01:43:11.046
I'll be asked to go back home.
1408
01:43:11.627 --> 01:43:13.408
My wife makes my favorite beans.
1409
01:43:13.909 --> 01:43:16.951
But then, before my wife started making my favorite beans, it was my mother.
1410
01:43:17.432 --> 01:43:19.153
My mother cooked her beans.
1411
01:43:19.233 --> 01:43:20.114
It's so tasty.
1412
01:43:20.594 --> 01:43:21.495
And I think I got that.
1413
01:43:21.555 --> 01:43:24.157
And I told my wife, this is how my mother cooked my beans.
1414
01:43:24.437 --> 01:43:25.098
And then she learned.
1415
01:43:25.418 --> 01:43:26.299
And she learned very well.
1416
01:43:26.639 --> 01:43:27.500
I think she went and got it.
1417
01:43:27.520 --> 01:43:29.462
The recipe for my mother before she died.
1418
01:43:31.283 --> 01:43:36.086
What are some of the books that have shaped your worldview and philosophy?
1419
01:43:37.707 --> 01:43:38.548
What are some of those books?
1420
01:43:38.568 --> 01:43:50.355
And I think the reason for that, it's important for our viewers to... One of the things I love about how we do this podcast is we try to show people how can they inherit wisdom without first inheriting the consequences that come with it.
1421
01:43:50.455 --> 01:43:52.236
So what are some of those books for you?
1422
01:43:52.516 --> 01:43:53.637
I used to read a lot of books.
1423
01:43:56.138 --> 01:44:03.921
If you ask me one thing I've missed lately with my job as minister, it's the fact that I don't have enough time to read.
1424
01:44:04.821 --> 01:44:15.164
Over time, I'll say I want to read when I'm traveling, I'll pack these books and then guess what I get on that plane, I'll slip off.
1425
01:44:15.344 --> 01:44:16.484
That's one thing I've missed.
1426
01:44:16.944 --> 01:44:22.066
But I'll tell you one book that has really shaped my own perception.
1427
01:44:23.234 --> 01:44:26.656
lately was a book by Mark Cohen.
1428
01:44:27.637 --> 01:44:29.678
I'm trying to remember the title.
1429
01:44:30.318 --> 01:44:34.900
It's about if you're building a new enterprise, how to scale up.
1430
01:44:36.181 --> 01:44:37.102
How to scale up.
1431
01:44:37.182 --> 01:44:40.844
It's applicable to, and I feel it's applicable to everything you do.
1432
01:44:40.984 --> 01:44:46.347
I think Mark Cohen, Cohen is his last name, how to scale up of a new enterprise.
1433
01:44:47.187 --> 01:44:52.590
If you want to scale, initially you give off efficiency.
1434
01:44:54.294 --> 01:44:57.678
But then, as you scale, say you're building a business.
1435
01:44:57.858 --> 01:45:02.264
You want to not go IPO, make it to list initially.
1436
01:45:03.025 --> 01:45:04.707
You want to just build market share.
1437
01:45:05.428 --> 01:45:08.372
As you build up, as you're scaling up, you lose efficiency.
1438
01:45:08.512 --> 01:45:11.355
But for you to be sustainable, you have to not
1439
01:45:12.548 --> 01:45:14.109
bring back efficiency.
1440
01:45:14.149 --> 01:45:15.409
That's where the difficulty is.
1441
01:45:16.309 --> 01:45:18.030
Good and being efficient.
1442
01:45:18.650 --> 01:45:27.093
That's when you now need all the expertise, the austerity, the attention, the strategies that you can deploy to maintain both together.
1443
01:45:27.893 --> 01:45:34.675
You can apply that to your daily life, what you do, your daily chores.
1444
01:45:35.435 --> 01:45:38.516
How can you do well and be efficient?
1445
01:45:38.936 --> 01:45:39.997
It's all about what you do.
1446
01:45:40.017 --> 01:45:41.037
Do well even if you're in school.
1447
01:45:41.895 --> 01:45:43.436
There's so much for you to do.
1448
01:45:43.457 --> 01:45:44.678
You want to learn, you want to study.
1449
01:45:45.759 --> 01:45:48.101
There's so many courses, so many subjects you need to do.
1450
01:45:48.762 --> 01:45:51.885
But then, how can you be efficient in doing it so that you can do it well?
1451
01:45:53.226 --> 01:46:00.072
So the last question we ask every single guest on the Afropolitan Podcast is, who do you want to see in that chair?
1452
01:46:00.593 --> 01:46:02.795
And who do you feel story needs to be told?
1453
01:46:02.815 --> 01:46:02.895
Yes.
1454
01:46:04.126 --> 01:46:04.666
In what chair?
1455
01:46:04.987 --> 01:46:05.407
This chair.
1456
01:46:05.427 --> 01:46:06.588
Like who needs to be interviewed?
1457
01:46:06.788 --> 01:46:07.928
Who needs to be interviewed?
1458
01:46:07.948 --> 01:46:09.529
Yeah, who would you want to see on this podcast?
1459
01:46:09.990 --> 01:46:15.873
I'll tell you, and I know you're trying to drive your, you've built a very good reputation to yourself.
1460
01:46:15.933 --> 01:46:23.658
And I sit, as I sat between with you, Chika, and Eche in the last two hours.
1461
01:46:23.758 --> 01:46:25.199
I have so much respect for you.
1462
01:46:25.779 --> 01:46:32.904
You've been so neutral in the way you've really addressed the issues, the questions that you directed at me.
1463
01:46:33.931 --> 01:46:42.574
I think honestly, beyond you focus on a lot of people, you should bring more government officials to your shows.
1464
01:46:42.614 --> 01:46:55.919
I told you earlier, before we start conversation that the story of our government is not, the success of President Bola Ametunumbo transformative agenda in Nigeria, the renaissance we're seeing in three years.
1465
01:46:56.499 --> 01:46:58.440
One thing that gives me confidence that this country,
1466
01:46:59.280 --> 01:47:05.586
When the part of the program can be fixed when you have the kind of leadership, which we have in President of President Bolabe Tunubu.
1467
01:47:06.187 --> 01:47:17.138
And I tell you, a lot of these ministers, other top government functionalities, they've just been so busy to drive the agenda of Mr. President, working day and night.
1468
01:47:17.958 --> 01:47:21.141
So it's now, but we have to force ourselves to start talking.
1469
01:47:21.802 --> 01:47:25.043
We've let the haters drive the narratives.
1470
01:47:26.263 --> 01:47:41.248
But then these people, these ministers, other top government officials have been so busy to even have time to come and talk about the wonderful work they're doing for President Bola Mechunbu, about the wonderful work President Bola Mechunbu is doing for the country, for the people of Nigeria.
1471
01:47:42.088 --> 01:47:44.009
So I would like you to bring more
1472
01:47:45.152 --> 01:47:50.215
government functionaries through the Afropolitan podcast.
1473
01:47:50.416 --> 01:47:54.698
You'll be doing a huge service to this country and to the people of Nigeria.
1474
01:47:54.778 --> 01:47:58.681
Is there a specific person that you recommend that you introduce us to?
1475
01:47:58.761 --> 01:48:00.682
Just pick, I'll introduce you, I'll drive it.
1476
01:48:00.762 --> 01:48:02.764
Even Mr. President, here we go.
1477
01:48:02.784 --> 01:48:05.366
Mr. President would like to talk to you, but he won't come here.
1478
01:48:06.627 --> 01:48:20.702
it will come here we have to go there but I'll tell you if we like to talk to you that I can I can tell you we like to talk to you you have to go there it will come to your studio thank you so much thank you so much thank you pleasure