/ / Education for Our Children
That no child's future is decided by what their parents can afford.
The cause my father gave his life to
The reality
By early 2026, education stakeholders put the state's out-of-school children at around 674,324, roughly 20.1% of children aged 3 to 17, described as the highest in the South-West.
The burden falls heavily on this district. A 2018 state assessment found the four Ọyọ-town-cluster local governments alone accounting for 85,725 out-of-school children. Twenty-three schools in Atiba, Afijio, Ọyọ East and Ọyọ West were shut for roughly a decade over a boundary dispute before reopening. Many schools are dilapidated. Teachers are short. Informal charges push poor families out even where schooling is meant to be free.
The money and the tools exist. They must be turned into classroom results.
How I will act
Sponsor and support national legislation to cut out-of-school numbers and compel the timely, accountable use of basic-education funds, resources directed first to the highest-need areas, and back the appropriations that fund it.
Rebuild and equip priority schools, beginning with the highest out-of-school local governments. Furniture, water and sanitation, safe buildings. A scholarship and bursary scheme for the brightest and the neediest.
Press the state to draw down and properly use the idle federal UBEC and BESDA grants. Attract the UBEC School Improvement and Learner Retention programmes, and partners such as UNICEF and the World Bank, to Ọyọ Central.
Our targets
Priority order: Ọyọ East, Afijio, Atiba, Ọyọ West.