Governor Peter Mbah has called for a quantum leap and the declaration of a national emergency in Nigeria’s education sector to guarantee the nation’s development and future prosperity.
Mbah argued that the audacity needed to fund a quantum leap in the nation’s education sector would flow from an appreciation of its necessity.
This was even as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), British Council, and other global and national education stakeholders have hailed the governor for making education the centerpiece of his administration’s development agenda.
The governor made the call in his keynote address at the 2026 Enugu Education Summit and the unveiling of the Enugu Education Policy at the International Conference Centre, Enugu, on Wednesday.
Speaking at the summit, themed, “Transforming Education for the Future: Leadership, Innovation, Partnership, Financing and Sustainable Reform,” he said Nigeria had reached the point where education must be treated as a national emergency.
“I believe Nigeria has reached the point where we must treat education as a national emergency.
“Not rhetorically, but in our budgets, our teacher development, our infrastructure, the standards we demand, and the partnerships we build between the Federal Government, states, development agencies, communities and the private sector.
“Our future prosperity depends upon the knowledge and capabilities of our people, after all. And that means every Nigerian child, wherever they are born, must have access to an education capable of preparing them for the world they are entering.
“Whatever education costs us today, ignorance will cost us far more tomorrow.
“Once we understand that, the question changes. It is no longer: Can we afford to make or fund this quantum leap? It becomes: What will happen to us if we do not?” he stated.
He further argued that no nation could truly eradicate poverty or achieve sustainable development without addressing the root causes of poverty, including lack of knowledge, know-how and the capabilities through which people create wealth, find employment, build enterprises, participate intelligently in society and determine the direction of their own lives.
“If we fix the road today but fail to educate the child who will maintain it tomorrow, how sustainable was our investment in the road?
“If we build factories but lack the skilled people capable of running increasingly sophisticated production systems, where is our own Industrial Revolution going to come from?
“And if millions of young people reach adulthood without the knowledge and capabilities to participate meaningfully in the economy, what exactly do we imagine the social cost of that will be?
“So, if Nigeria is to become a creation economy rather than a consumption economy, then we must equip our young people not simply to use what the world creates, but to research, design, engineer and create what the world needs.
“The point here is straightforward: transformation cannot survive on aspiration alone. Eventually, somebody has to pay for it,” he stated.
Mbah cited his administration’s decision to invest 33 per cent of the state’s annual budget in education for three consecutive years, building, among other facilities, 268 Smart Green Schools and more than 7,000 classrooms equipped with 21st-century learning tools.
“If Enugu’s experience offers one lesson, it is that when the scale of the challenge demands a quantum leap, audacity is not a luxury. It is a necessity.
“When we came into government, we had to look at that reality very closely. We could have repaired the existing system. We could have renovated some classrooms, supplied some desks, put computers into a few schools and called it reform.
“But we had to ask ourselves a more difficult question: would it be enough?
