With the dual education system, especially on the skills track and where research and extension service drives commercial incomes to the schools students may not only be ‘tuition free’ participants but they may receive remuneration

Flowing from both lessons of experience with UNESCO’s education decades , the implementation of the Eric Ashby Commission on Higher Education, moderated by the conceptual insights of Paulo Freire, in this season when poverty needs to be combated with full force and sustainable development and economic growth surging forward from innovation, the education strategy of choice is to be functional but anchored in values and character building.

Such a strategy of education development is far too important to be left in the hands of politicians alone. Our proposal therefore envisages partnership in which strong voice is found for parents, communities, civil society and the private sector. We are.pleased that track of thinking was embraced by Mr Peter Obi. The strategy acknowledged the work of British educator James Tooley whose understanding of how most of the low income parents in Lagos send their children to low cost private schools influenced a prescription for funding through taxes, and private fees

Back to Education and healthcare and the elements of reform that anchor the emergency we have got the candidates backed by the Big Tent to sign up on. Perhaps I should point to a practical and a conceptual base our thinking which have guided Big Tent prescription. Clear practical illustration of the Great Escape, as Angus Deaton calls escap guy misery driven by wise investment in education and healthcare is in how China halted hundreds of years of frozen progress, with Deng Xiao Ping focusing on education, and respect for people of knowledge, when he came out of obscurity after Mao’s death. His speeches in 1978 focusing on education would yield the fruit served in the conversation between Barack Obama, as US President and Steve Jobs in which Obama asked why Apple built the I-phone in China. The software engineers were plenty and much less expensive in China after just one generation of the push by Deng. Our thinking was also influenced by the conceptual reflection on the nature of colonial education by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire who wrote The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. From here we served a position that the learner must begin with a vision of the world and seek learning that will make him a transformative agent moving his world to the envisioned state. Then there was the insight on how the Eastern region engineered the leapfrog in education in the 1950s with the philosophy of Ibu anyi danda which brought government, the missions and the community led by the Ibo State Union into partnership to pace up access to education.

Politicians who believe you should be frying and selling akara and kwuli-kwuli as a university graduate are enemies of your progress. They do not want to see you grow.

Other countries like the UK, Spain, Germany and the US turn football into jobs, tourism and billions in revenue. Nigeria turns talent into missed opportunities. This must change, a vote for Peter Obi will set things on the right direction.

Several Diaspora Nigerians have been calling to be assured INEC will not be toying with the Elections time tables. Civil Society has a duty to fight for the integrity of the elections process. It must guard against the pushing around of elections time tables to subvert the interest of voters. In the last three elections cycles this has been deployed as a subversive tool. This must be resisted as it reduces the confidence of voters and affects the plans of many in the Diaspora who buy tickets long in advance to come home to vote.

The painful truth about Nigerian football that every Super Eagles fan should know

Nigeria will definitely be OK.

It fills me with hope to see Nigerians who refuse to surrender to the decay around them, who understand that the fate of a nation cannot be left to the mercy of a few corrupt. Through our collective determination, organised effort, and unwavering commitment to change, we shall put Nigeria on the path of progress and reclaim the future our people deserve.

If you don't have any sinister motives, why should anyone be arrested for promoting “Rig and D!e”? If the APC believes in free and fair elections, its members should be among those promoting it the most.

We live in a country where an APC youth leader can flaunt ₦1 billion worth of SUVs on the internet, while a police constable, who is responsible for safeguarding the lives and property of Nigerians, earns less than ₦3 million a year. This level of wickedness and injustice must not continue.

I know many business owners who have had to shut down because they can no longer keep up with the rising cost of petrol in Nigeria. The APC government is making life increasingly difficult for Nigerians. Idris is right.

The Nigerian condition forces us to struggle so often to make sense of nonsense. In a week I was landing in Addis Ababa and the city looked like a Christmas tree of rows of brightly lit high rise buildings, Nigeria suffered another grid collapse with less than 900 MW of power available to a quarter of a billion people, spokespersons for APC presidential campaign council still lacked shame enough to tell us wishing for less than Ethiopia, where we saw mud houses in Addis 25 years ago, now gets, is utopian, you know something is deeply wrong. But how do you communicate in a country where poverty is so weaponized that apparently educated people will say anything for a suckle of the feeding bottle held by the linchpins of state capture. The need for quick response to those who reply like Lai Mohammed is imperative. The Big Tent is pleased therefore to unveil a cohort of Rapid Response spokespersons for the Candidates it backs. Comrade Tony Akeni, Magnus Oraka, David Adenekan, coordinating the Big Tent Diaspora, and Nasser Sidi Ali, to respond and verify what the shameless spew into the market place to deceive. In spite of the other side they should do it forcefully but with integrity.

A vote for Peter Obi is a vote for progress, development, and a better future for your children. It is about building a Nigeria where quality education is accessible, hospitals work, businesses thrive, jobs are available, and every child has a fair chance to succeed.

At what point are you going to tell yourself that you deserve better? The politicians eating away at your future do not really value you. You deserve better, man. You really do.