Nigeria’s former President,
Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday addressed the global community in Geneva,
Switzerland at a press conference hosted by the Geneva Press Club. Below is the
full text of the speech focused on Security, Education and Development in
Africa exclusively obtained by SIGNAL
Protocols
Ladies and Gentlemen of the
press, I thank you for coming to hear me speak on the twin issues of education
and security.
Though this event is billed
as a press conference on a Better Security and Education for West Africa, for
the sake of time, I will focus on my experience in government which gave me a
practical demonstration of how education impacts on security.
I will thereafter touch on my
post presidential focus which is on advancing democracy and good governance in
Africa and increasing access to opportunity for wealth generation in Africa.
If you peruse the official
UNESCO literacy rates by country, what you will find is that all of the top ten
most literate nations in the world are at peace, while almost all of the top 10
least literate nations in the world are in a state of either outright war or
general insecurity.
Lower education levels are
linked to poverty and poverty is one of the chief causative factors of crime
whether it is terrorism or militancy or felonies.
With this at the back of my
mind, I began the practice of giving education the highest sectoral allocation
beginning with my very first budget as President in 2011.
My policy was to fight
insecurity in the immediate term using counter insurgency strategies and the
military and for the long term I fought it using education as a tool.
As I have always believed, if
we do not spend billions educating our youths today, we will spend it fighting
insecurity tomorrow. And you do not have to spend on education just because of
insecurity. It is also the prudent thing to do.
Nigeria, or any African nation
for that matter, can never become wealthy by selling more minerals or raw
materials such as oil. Our wealth as a nation is between the ears of our
people.
It is no coincidence that the
Northeast epicenter of terrorism in Nigeria is also the region with the highest
rate of illiteracy and the least developed part of Nigeria.
In Nigeria, the Federal
Government actually does not have a responsibility for primary and secondary
education, but I could not in good conscience stomach a situation
where 52.4% of males in the Northeastern region of Nigeria have no formal
Western education.
The figure is even worse when
you take into account the states most affected by the insurgency.
83.3% of male population in
Yobe state have no formal Western education. In Borno state it is 63.6%.
Bearing this in mind is it a
coincidence that the Boko Haram insurgency is strongest in these two states?
So even though we did not
have a responsibility for primary and secondary education going by the way the
Nigerian federation works, I felt that where I had ability, I also had
responsibility even if the constitution said it was not my responsibility.
Knowing that terrorism thrives under such conditions my immediate goal was to increase the penetration of Western education in the region while at the same time making sure that the people of the region did not see it as a threat to their age old practices of itinerant Islamic education known as Almajiri.
For the first time in Nigeria’s history, the Federal
Government which I led, set out to build 400 Almajiri schools with specialized
curricula that combined Western and Islamic education. 160 of them had been
completed before I left office.
I am also glad to state that
when I emerged as President of Nigeria on May 6th 2010, there were nine states
in the Northern part of the country that did not have universities. By the time
I left office on the 29th of May 2015, there was no Nigerian state without at
least one Federal University.
Now the dearth of access to
formal education over years created the ideal breeding ground for terror to
thrive in parts of Nigeria but there are obviously other dimensions to the
issue of insecurity in Nigeria and particularly terrorism.
You may recall that the fall
of the Gaddafi regime in August 2011 led to a situation where sophisticated
weapons fell into the hands of a number of non-state actors with attendant
increase in terrorism and instability in North and West Africa.
The administration I headed
initiated partnership across West Africa to contain such instability in nations
such as Mali, which I personally visited in furtherance of peace.
And with those countries
contiguous to Nigeria, especially nations around the Lake Chad Basin, we formed
a coalition for the purpose of having a common front against terrorists through
the revived Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF).
Those efforts continue till
today and have in large part helped decimate the capacity of Boko Haram.
Another aspect of the anti-terror
war we waged in Nigeria that has not received enough attention is our effort to
improve on our intelligence gathering capacity.
Prior to my administration,
Nigeria’s
intelligence architecture was designed largely around regime protection, but
through much sustained effort we were able to build capacity such that our
intelligence agencies were able to trace and apprehend the masterminds behind
such notorious terror incidences as the Christmas Day bombing of the St.
Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger State.
Other suspects were also
traced and arrested including those behind the Nyanya and Kuje bombings.
Not only did we apprehend
suspects, but we tried and convicted some of them including the ring leader of
the Madalla bombing cell, Kabir Sokoto, who is right now serving a prison
sentence.
But leadership is about the
future. I am sure you have not come here to hear me talk about the way
backward. You, like everyone else, want to hear about the way forward.
I am no longer in office, and
I no longer have executive powers on a national level. However, I am more
convinced now than ever about the nexus between education and security.
My foundation, The Goodluck
Jonathan Foundation, was formed to further democracy, good governance and
wealth generation in Africa.
Of course, Charity begins at
home and for the future, what Nigeria needs is to focus on making education a
priority.
Thankfully, the
administration that succeeded mine in its first budget, appears to have seen
wisdom in continuing the practice of giving education the highest sectorial allocation.
This is commendable.
I feel that what people in my
position, statesmen and former leaders, ought to be doing is to help build
consensus all over Africa, to ensure that certain issues should not be
politicized.
Education is one of those
issues. If former African leaders can form themselves into an advisory group to
gently impress on incumbent leaders the necessity of meeting the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommended
allocation of 26% of a nations annual budget on education, I am certain that
Africa will make geometric progress in meeting her Millennium Development
Goals and improving on every index of the Human Development Index.
Data has shown that as
spending on education increases, health and well being increases and incidences
of maternal and infant mortality reduce.
In Nigeria for instance,
Average Life Expectancy had plateaued in the mid-40s for decades, but after
2011, when we began giving education the highest sectorial allocation,
according to the United Nations, Nigeria enjoyed her highest increase in
Average Life Expectancy since records were kept. We moved from an Average Life
Expectancy of 47 years before 2011 to 54 years by 2015.
I had earlier told you about
the connection between education and insecurity.
I believe that it is the job
of former leaders and elder statesmen to convince Executive and Legislative
branches across Africa to work together to achieve the UNESCO recommended
percentage as a barest minimum.
I intend to offer my services,
through The Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, for this purpose and I invite
interested organizations to help us make this happen.
Ladies and gentlemen of the
press, this, in a nutshell are some of my thoughts for a Better Security and
Education for Africa and I will now entertain your questions.
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