Don’t kill education in FCT

In a nation where optics trump outcomes, what passes for “development” often hides a darker reality; decay at the core. Nowhere is this contradiction more glaring than in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja. And at the centre of this negligence stands an administration that is busy brandishing infrastructure achievements while the very foundation of society, public […]

In a nation where optics trump outcomes, what passes for “development” often hides a darker reality; decay at the core. Nowhere is this contradiction more glaring than in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja. And at the centre of this negligence stands an administration that is busy brandishing infrastructure achievements while the very foundation of society, public education, is collapsing under his watch.

For three straight months, public primary school teachers in the FCT have been on strike; children as young as six have not stepped into a classroom. An entire generation is being robbed of its right to learn, grow, and dream. Yet, the minister in charge of the FCT stays unmoved. Not a statement. Not a concrete action. Not even the pretence of urgency.

This is not just administrative oversight; it is a gross failure of leadership.

In the FCT, we see headlines for road projects, urban renewal, and a relentless obsession with brick-and-mortar progress. But development is not cement. It is not streetlights and marble offices. Real development is human capital. It is about children in school. It is about teachers to be treated with dignity. It is systems that work — not headlines that shine.

Yet, while classrooms stay empty, there is extension of the tenures of retiring Permanent Secretaries and Heads of Service in the FCT — some without merit, and against due process. These extensions do not just delay succession; they actively kill the careers of competent, younger public servants. Hope is being choked from both ends; children abandoned before they start, and civil servants blocked from rising.

Why this silence from the media? Why isn’t this front-page news?

Because we have normalised brokenness. We have accepted that public school kids — mostly from low-income families — can vanish from education for a term or more, and life moves on. But let us be clear: this isn’t just a bureaucratic lapse; it’s an ethical disaster. A silent emergency.

The teachers are not on strike for fun. They are demanding the bare minimum: implementation of the national minimum wage, settlement of arrears, promised allowances, and respect for agreements already signed. These are not luxuries. These are legal and moral obligations.

The present FCT Administration must be called out — not just for ignoring the education crisis, but for redefining development as an ego-driven parade of capital projects, while the real capital — human capital — bleeds unnoticed.

To the media: you cannot continue to cover ribbon-cuttings while skipping stories of classrooms that echo with silence.

To the people: if this is how we treat our children, we deserve the future we are creating. Leadership is not showmanship; it is stewardship. The city Nyesom Wike is building is hollow without educated minds to inherit it.

Development is not real if it forgets the children. It is not progress if it buries the dreams of young civil servants. And it is not leadership if it only shows up for the cameras.

Nigeria is watching. History is writing. Choose your legacy.

 

Pelaha Tada Quita wrote from Aleita, Abuja [email protected]