Former Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, has warned that Nigeria is paying a “heavy price” for years of neglect in its education sector, describing many schools across the country as broken and chronically underfunded.
Osinbajo said the failure to prioritise education has weakened the nation’s leadership pipeline and eroded the moral and civic foundations needed for long-term national development.
He spoke on Monday as the guest lecturer at the 94th Founders’ Day celebration of Igbobi College, Lagos, where he delivered a lecture titled “Building generational strength for educational institutions in Nigeria.”
Reflecting on his own secondary school experience, Osinbajo recalled how strict discipline helped shape future leaders.
“The discipline of waking up at 5:30am and obeying ‘lights out’ rules actually built great leaders,” he said. “The habits that sustain adults are formed in school, not improvised later in life.”
According to him, leadership is formed long before adulthood, stressing that by the age of 18, a child’s ethical instincts are largely established.
Osinbajo argued that fixing Nigeria’s education crisis cannot be left to government alone, calling on corporate organisations, alumni and well-meaning individuals to support schools through sustainable funding models such as endowments.
“Many great institutions are backed by large endowments that sustain them for decades. These funds are not just about money but about preserving values, standards and a shared worldview,” he noted.
He added that Igbobi College itself was founded on missionary endowments from Anglican and Methodist churches, which helped provide quality education and a strong moral framework for generations of students.
“The question every serious society must ask is: what will outlive us? Our early leaders did not emerge by accident. They were shaped by schools deliberately protected from instability,” Osinbajo said.
The former Vice President, an alumnus of Igbobi College from 1969 to 1975, recalled winning several academic and leadership awards during his time at the school, including the State Merit Award and the African Statesman Intercollegiate Best Speaker’s Prize.
Meanwhile, the Igbobi College Old Boys’ Association (ICOBA) unveiled a ₦10 billion Endowment Fund aimed at revitalising the school and securing its future for the next 100 years.
The President of ICOBA, Chief Yomi Badejo-Okusanya, said the fund would finance new hostels, upgraded science laboratories and the introduction of advanced learning technologies.
He assured stakeholders that the fund would be professionally managed by Chapel Hill Denham to ensure transparency and accountability.
“We don’t want anyone to use the money anyhow,” Badejo-Okusanya said, urging alumni to contribute and think beyond the present generation.
Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, represented by the Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Hon. Jamiu Tolani Alli-Balogun, pledged government support for initiatives that strengthen educational institutions.
“When schools produce disciplined individuals, government spends less fixing social problems and benefits from stronger leadership,” the governor said.
The lecture session was chaired by Mr Ademola Adeyemi-Bero, who described endowments as a shift from short-term intervention to long-term institutional stability.
