Activist advocates girl-child education in Nigeria

 human rights activist, Dr. Otive Igbuzor, has advocated girl-child education in order to reduce maternal mortality rate in the society.

 He said this in Abuja in a keynote address at the 6th anniversary and award of scholarship to some less privileged children by the Emoeferotu Foundation.

 In a statement made available to our correspondent, Igbuzor said there was a correlation between education and maternal mortality rate. He said, “If a woman is educated, the possibility of dying an avoidable death is reduced. That is why girl -child education must be encouraged.’’

 Beyond the encouraging girl-child education, Igbuzor added that lack of access to education had kept many Nigerian children out of school, especially, the less privileged ones. This anomaly, he said, must be addressed for the country to actualise its dreams of becoming a developed nation.

 Igbuzor, who decried the under-funding of education by the government, said conscious efforts must be made by all well meaning Nigerians to ensure that every Nigerian child got qualitative education.

 He said government must allocate a substantial percentage of its annual budget to education to enable the millions of children that were roaming the streets have access to qualitative education.

 He said, ‘‘Access is a big problem. Quality and funding are issues that must be addressed, for every child that is up to school age to be in school and not just receive education but quality education. The quality of education in Nigeria is lamentable.” 

 The founder of the Foundation, Ms. Pamela Esiri, said she was moved to establish it by the passion to give voice to the voiceless and provide access to education to the less privileged children in the rural areas, who do not have the opportunity to acquire formal education. According to her, every child of school age must be given access or else the society will pay dearly for it.

 She said, ‘‘I went to riverside areas of Niger Delta and discovered that there were so many children out of school.

 We decided to go back to our communities to work with these children from the trench. ‘‘Everything we do, we try to get the best out of it.

 The parents are not taking proper care of these children, not to talk about the government.

 We plan to go round the country, including orphanages. ‘‘To address this menace, we should all begin to search ourselves and be the change we want and stop complaining everywhere we go.’’