Renowned Pakistani activist for female education, Malala Yousafzai has advised the Nigerian government to declare a state of emergency on education.
She made the call at the Presidential Villa Abuja, when she paid a scheduled visit on Acting President Yemi Osinbajo.
Malala encouraged all tiers of government to collaborate more on how best to educate children in the country.
According to the female education activist, Nigeria needs to declare a state of emergency on education, so as to afford more children the opportunity to gain knowledge, as she urged the three tiers of government to work together towards achieving that.
“It was a very good meeting. We had a fruitful discussion with his Excellency, the Acting President. I highlighted on the need to scale up education; that the government should declare a state of emergency in education because education of girls and boys in Nigeria is important. The Federal, State and Local governments need to be united on this,” she said.
Malala Yousafzai advised government to continue to make public all its expenditure on education, adding that the child rights act should be domesticated in the thirty six states of the country.
“The spending on education should be made public and the Child Rights Act should be implemented in the States of the country, this was my key point,” Malala stated.
The youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate expressed satisfaction with the kind of response she got from Acting President Osinbajo, who pledged that education would be prioritised and all sexes of Nigerian children, will be given equal opportunity towards education.
20 year old Malala became prominent after she survived an assassination attempt by Talibans in 2012, because of her advocacy for girl child education. Since then, she has remained focused on campaigning globally for female education.
She had explained earlier before the meeting went into a closed session that her goal was to ensure that children, particularly the girl-child’s right for quality education was protected.
According to her, “My goal is that no child should be deprived of the basic right that they have. So, I am campaigning for this and I hope that all my Nigerian brothers and sisters can also go to school and learn.”
Also speaking, her father and Co-founder of Malala Fund, Ziauddin Yousafzai, noted that the vision of the Malala Fund was to ensure that every girl in all corners of the world gets quality, free education.
Malala was on October 9, 2012, shot in the head by a Taliban gunman as she rode home on a bus after taking an exam in Pakistan’s Swat Valley because she had spoken up for the right of girls to be educated.
The incident drew world condemnation.