Onome Amuge
Nigeria is paying an economic price for decades of underinvestment in education, former vice-president Yemi Osinbajo warned recently, as alumni of one of the country’s most storied secondary schools unveiled a N10 billion endowment aimed at insulating learning from fiscal volatility and political cycles.
Speaking at the 94th Founders’ Day celebration of Igbobi College in Lagos, Osinbajo described the crisis in education not only as a social failure but as a structural weakness with long-term implications for leadership, productivity and national competitiveness. Many Nigerian schools, he said, are broken and underfunded, leaving the country to absorb the downstream costs in governance failures and weak institutions.
While Nigeria has made repeated commitments to human capital development, education spending remains constrained by budget pressures, rising debt service and competing social needs. The result, Osinbajo said, is a system that struggles to transmit values, discipline and skills early enough to shape effective leaders later in life.
“The habits that sustain adults are formed in school, not improvised later in life. By the time a child turns 18, their ethical instincts are already likely formed,” he told an audience of alumni, policymakers and education professionals.
Unlike traditional calls for increased public spending, Osinbajo’s intervention focused on endowments (long-term pools of professionally managed capital), as a way to stabilise educational institutions and preserve standards regardless of political or fiscal shocks.
“Many great institutions are backed by large endowments that sustain their operations for decades. They are not just about money. They sustain standards, culture, values and norms,” he said.
The emphasis reflects growing interest among Nigerian elites and diaspora groups in private financing models for social infrastructure, particularly where state capacity is stretched. Endowments, common among leading universities in the US and UK, remain rare in Nigeria’s secondary education system.
Yet Osinbajo noted that Igbobi College itself, founded in 1932 by Anglican and Methodist missionaries, was originally sustained by endowment support. Fees alone, he argued, cannot finance the type of moral and civic environment that produces disciplined graduates over generations.
That logic underpins the N10 billion endowment fund unveiled by the Igbobi College Old Boys’ Association (ICOBA), one of the most ambitious alumni-led education financing initiatives in Nigeria.
Yomi Badejo-Okusanya, ICOBA’s president, said the fund would be used to rebuild hostels, upgrade science laboratories and deploy advanced learning technologies, areas where many Nigerian public schools lag behind global standards.
To address concerns about governance and misuse of funds, the endowment will be managed by Chapel Hill Denham, a Lagos-based investment firm, marking a deliberate shift toward professional asset management.
“We don’t want anyone to use the money anyhow,” Badejo-Okusanya said, urging alumni to contribute generously and consistently. Quoting an Igbo proverb, “Good soup na money kill am”, he emphasised that quality requires sustained investment, even encouraging bequests from alumni estates.
The structure reflects a trend in Nigeria’s private sector, where pension funds, foundations and family offices are increasingly demanding transparency, returns and long-term planning, even in philanthropic ventures.
The Lagos State government signalled its support for such initiatives, singling out education quality as a cost-saving investment rather than a fiscal burden.
Representing Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Jamiu Tolani Alli-Balogun, the commissioner for basic and secondary education, argued that disciplined, well-trained graduates reduce the social costs of crime, poor infrastructure management and weak governance.
“When a school produces disciplined individuals, it helps government save money on social problems,” he said, linking education outcomes directly to state capacity and economic management.
Osinbajo, who attended Igbobi College between 1969 and 1975, traced his own approach to public service to values instilled during his school years. He credited strict routines like early mornings, enforced discipline and respect for hierarchy, with shaping habits that later informed his conduct in government.
“I served in several governments, but I was never able to be sycophantic. IIngrained in me is an abhorrence of empty praise,” he said.
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