President Muhammadu Buhari has restated his administration’s commitment to the growth and development of the education sector of the country.
He regretted the numerous challenges facing the nation, stressing that education remained critical to correcting those ills.
Buhari spoke at Orifite, Ekwusigo local government area, Anambra state through the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba during the donation of over 1,460 volumes of books to 319 educational institutions and seven libraries across the country by the Emeka Offor foundation.
He said: “Nigeria is challenged at all fronts. But of all its biggest fronts will be how to educate nearly 200million people and make them useful workforce for the service of our country.
“For everytime you see something that is bad, it’s the failure of our education. Anytime you see people ill-mannered or ill-tempered, it’s a failure of what they should have learnt and how they should behave.
“It’s on this premise that we’ll always want to encourage those who help us through provision of work materials we carry out this work.”
Describing Emeka Offor as a blessing to the people of his community, the state, country and the African continent, Buhari pledged federal government support to his foundation.
He added: “Nigeria is blessed, Orifite is lucky to have him, the African continent is luckiest to have brought a son like him.
“His work has only begun because every governor in the country is looking forward to this kind of help and accommodation.
“The federal government promises to help you anyway we can. We’ll work with you. Let’s find a way of encouraging the kind of work he’s doing.”
Earlier, Chief Executive of the Emeka Offor foundation, Sir Dr. Emeka Offor said the gesture was aimed at eradicating illiteracy and improving the reading culture of the people.
He added that the foundation intended to provide a knowledge warehouse for the children future generations of Africa and to support government at all levels in improving educational infrastructure for effective teaching and learning.
According to him, the foundation had distributed educational materials to educational institutions in Nigeria and 18 other African countries worth over $30million.
“We have plans to introduce medical equipment and supplies as well as import over 100 ft container of medical equipment and supplies for distribution to designated hospitals and health institutions before the end of the year,” he added.
While disclosing the arrival of 14 containers, Offor assured that all health institutions in attendance would go back with their consignments.
Former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, commended the benefactor for his immense contributions to the educational and health sectors of the country.
Describing the gesture as worth emulating, Nnamani called for support from the federal government to ensure the exercise was sustained.
The educational institutions which benefitted from the donation comprised of 80 Universities, 22 Polytechnics, 37 Colleges of Education, 7 Public libraries and 180 primary and secondary schools.