Girl Child Education: The answer to a prosperous Nigeria

Chinenye was 18 years old while her brother was 17. They were both intelligent and made good grades in their Senior School Certificate Examination. Their common prayer point every morning and evening was for a miracle that would grant them scholarship through the university. While Emeka wanted to read Law, Chinenye dreamt of being a banker.

She was always impressed with the way bankers dressed and wished to study Accounting and work in a banking firm. This dream they saw as the key to breaking the viscous cycle of poverty in their family since their father was late and their mother who hardly finished secondary school in her time was a petty trader in groceries. She managed to make ends meet and despite the fact that her only son, Emeka used to split firewood to sell to augment the family coffers, they knew without an external push, their dream of being university graduates would be just pipe.

So imagine the excitement of the mother when a certain Brother Ben who had  just moved into their neighbourhood took up fancy in Chinenye. Brother Ben did not waste time to intimate their mother of his intentions to marry Chinenye. Now, note that Brother Ben was 42 years old at the time and a recluse of sort who held two federal government jobs (of course, illegally) and drove a clean Toyota Corolla 2018 model. His ever clean shaven face did a good job at concealing his true age and out of desperation, Chinenye’s mum jumped at the offer of marriage believing that with Brother Ben, an ardent church goer who looked well to do, her dreams of taking her children out of the cold arms of poverty was inevitable. 

Long story short, Chinenye got married. The reverie was shortlived as Brother Ben who had serious inferiority complex issues started unwrapping his sadistic ways to the family. Part of the promise he made Chinenye while wooing her was that they would not start making babies until she gets her first degree and that her brother would be sponsored through university to do his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree. And that he would see that the young man gains automatic employment after school. But as soon as the marriage was done, Brother Ben got Chinenye in the family way, stopped taking phone calls from the girl’s mum and insisted Chinenye must stay indoors and that he did not have money to train her brother. 

After Chinenye gave birth to a baby girl and her mother had spent 2 weeks with them on the customary omugwo, Brother Ben asked her to go. There was an altercation between them and he asked Chinenye to leave his house alongside her mother. Today Chinenye does the same petty trading with her mum. No other suitor has come for her as the husband refused to collect the customary ngo that releases a woman to remarry in Igboland. Her brother now follows a commutter bus driver as conductor and his new dream is now to learn how to drive so he can some day soon become a driver too and make more money with which to support his sister and mother. 

This little analogy goes to prove the assertion that rapid socioeconomic development of a family, society or nation has been observed to depend on the quality of women and their education. Education gives women a disposition for a lifelong acquisition of knowledge, values, attitudes, competence, confidence, independence and skills.

Girl-child education in Nigeria has many challenges. They include gender discrimination, cultural and religious limitations, poverty, illiteracy, among others. Imagine if Chinenye had gone ahead to read Accountancy and had a job before she went into marriage. She would have had better choices and not have fallen into the hands of that predator. 

Education is a basic human right and has been recognized as such since the 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.21 Oct 2022. However, girls account for 60% of Nigeria’s 10 million out-of-school children, facing barriers such as child marriage, poverty and discriminatory social norms.

In Nigeria, 30% of girls aged 9-12 have never been to school at all.

Poor families often favour boys when investing in education. In some places, schools do not meet the safety, hygiene or sanitation needs of girls. The need for women in power and indeed all well meaning policy makers to pursue the cause of compulsory and adequate girl child education in Nigeria  cannot be over emphasised. The future of the Nigerian society and economy is greatly dependent on it.