Tinubu Has Delivered 100% of 2023 Campaign Promises, Nigeria Is Back — Alausa By Beauty Akporido Aroh
The Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, CON, has declared that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has delivered on almost 100 per cent of the promises he made during the 2023 presidential campaign, insisting that Nigeria is undergoing a profound transformation under the Renewed Hope Agenda.
Alausa made the assertion in Abuja while receiving the 2025 Nigeria 2050: Child Foresight Analysis for Futures Literacy and Intergenerational Equity, a flagship initiative of the Anticipatory Governance and Foresight Capacity Programme of the Office of the Vice President, implemented with technical support from UNICEF.
The Child Foresight team was led to the Minister’s office by its Director-General, Chris Ngwodo, and the Special Assistant on Special Duties to the Vice President, Mohammed Ahmed.
The Minister said the transformation under Tinubu was no longer a matter of political promises, but was becoming visible through reforms and measurable interventions, particularly in education, technical and vocational training, medical education, data management and human capital development.
“I can assure you of that one fact because today we have a President who is leading the country, managing this country from the front, with the highest level of integrity, commitment, patriotism and determination to change the face of this country,” Alausa said.
He added: “And these are not just rhetorics we are hearing now. These are things we are seeing, with a lot of tangible benefits and tangible change in the country.”
According to him, three years into the administration, the country had moved beyond the uncertainty that previously characterised its development trajectory and was now focused on consolidating reforms while addressing areas where significant gaps remained.
“The country is not at a crossroads again. We have a lot of catching up to do,” he said.
Alausa identified education as one of the critical pillars of the administration’s transformation agenda, saying the Federal Ministry of Education was implementing wide-ranging reforms under the Nigerian Education Sector Renewal Initiative, NESRI.
He said the reforms covered technical and vocational education and training, STEM education, teacher quality, quality assurance, reduction of the out-of-school population, education data and digitalisation.
The Minister said the renewed focus on TVET was deliberately designed to reposition technical education as a viable pathway to employment, entrepreneurship and further education.
“Skills are the present and the future,” he declared, stressing that Nigeria could no longer afford an education system that failed to equip young people with practical skills required by the modern economy.
He recalled that technical education had historically played an important role in producing skilled workers, artisans, entrepreneurs and professionals, but suffered decades of neglect and declining public confidence.
He said the Federal Government was now restoring TVET to the centre of national education planning because of its potential to drive employment, productivity and economic growth.
The Minister also highlighted investments in medical education and professional training as part of the government’s response to skills shortages and the migration of Nigerian professionals abroad.
He said the government was expanding access to nursing education and increasing training capacity in existing teaching hospitals, federal medical centres and specialist hospitals, rather than depending exclusively on the construction of new institutions.
Alausa said the objective was to create more opportunities for Nigerians to acquire quality professional training locally while building a workforce capable of competing anywhere in the world.
Another major area of reform, he said, was the government’s shift towards data-driven education planning.
The Minister questioned the long-standing estimates of between 15 million and 17 million out-of-school children in Nigeria, arguing that the figures had often been repeated without adequate household-level verification.
He cited emerging findings from state-level household surveys, particularly in Kaduna and Jigawa, as evidence that the actual figures could be significantly different from historical estimates.
According to him, a Kaduna household survey covering more than 90 per cent of households reportedly identified fewer than 190,000 out-of-school children, compared with an earlier estimate of about 585,000.
He said another estimate of about 1.2 million out-of-school children in the state had also reportedly fallen to fewer than 100,000 after a general household survey.
Alausa said similar discrepancies were being identified in Jigawa State.
He stressed, however, that a downward revision of the national figure would not diminish the urgency of tackling school exclusion.
“Even if there’s significant reduction, any child out of school is still too many,” he said.
The Minister disclosed that more than one million children had been moved from the streets into schools nationally over the past two and a half years, while Jigawa State alone had reportedly enrolled more than 180,000 children into school within two years.
He said the government’s next challenge was to ensure that children remained in school and that new cases of school exclusion were prevented.
Alausa said the digitalisation of education records was central to achieving that objective, revealing that more than 56 per cent of public schools had submitted their 2026 Annual School Census information, while 41 per cent of private schools had populated their records on the digital Nigerian Education Management Information System.
“Without data, you’re flying blind. Data will tell you everything,” he said.
The Minister said accurate education data would enable government to identify where children were excluded from school, understand the causes, target infrastructure and interventions and track whether children returning to school remained enrolled.
He also disclosed that the Ministry had conducted a national assessment to establish a baseline for literacy, numeracy and cognitive development among learners at primary, junior secondary and senior secondary levels.
The assessment, he said, would allow the government to measure learning outcomes and determine whether interventions were producing the desired results.
Alausa linked the reforms to the findings of the Child Foresight Analysis, saying Nigeria’s youthful population made long-term planning an imperative.
With about 70 per cent of Nigeria’s estimated 220 million population below the age of 30, he said the country had a unique opportunity to transform its demographic strength into a demographic dividend.
He said this would require sustained investment in quality education, relevant skills, productive opportunities and long-term planning.
The Minister commended the Office of the Vice President, the Office for Strategic Preparedness and Resilience and UNICEF for supporting the foresight initiative, describing it as an important instrument for moving Nigeria from reactive governance to anticipatory action.
He said the Ministry would seek to align the findings of the initiative with NESRI, particularly in future literacy, skills development, education data, long-term planning and intergenerational equity.
Alausa said the country should no longer wait for future challenges to emerge before responding to them, but should deliberately shape the future through evidence-based planning and strategic investment.
He maintained that the ultimate test of the Tinubu administration’s reforms would be whether Nigerian children and young people receive better education, acquire relevant skills, secure productive opportunities and contribute meaningfully to national development.
“Nigeria has changed, and it has changed for good,” the Minister declared.
The 2025 Nigeria 2050: Child Foresight Analysis for Futures Literacy and Intergenerational Equity examines the risks, opportunities and drivers expected to shape the lives of Nigerian children and young people towards 2050, with the objective of strengthening futures literacy, anticipatory governance and intergenerational equity in national planning.
