Utomi-Led Big Tent Rejects Presidency’s Hollow Defence of Tinubu’s Educational Collapse

The Big Tent Coalition led by Professor Pat Utomi has denounced the President Bola Tinubu government for its consistent pattern of subterfuge, of listing activities and outputs, then declare them “achievements,” while deliberately avoiding measurable outcomes, and its retreat to outputs when confronted with outcomes.

According to the coalition, the Presidency, through Bayo Onanuga, presidential spokesperson, has once again chosen deflection over accountability. Rather than confront the lived reality of millions of Nigerians, it has attacked the 2027 presidential election frontrunner, Peter Obi, for stating the obvious on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics interview – that President Tinubu’s ‘Renewed Hope’ has delivered renewed hopelessness.

NDC presidential candidate’s assessment, according to Big Tent, is not rhetoric, it is backed by the daily evidence of collapsing living standards, rising poverty, and institutional decay. The Presidency’s tenuous response follows a familiar pattern of listing activities and outputs, then declare them “achievements,” while studiously avoiding measurable outcomes. This is the core failure of this APC-led administration. It confuses activity with impact, spending with results, and announcements with transformation.

In a statement issued by Director, Media and Communications of the Utomi-led Big Tent Coalition, Charles Odibo, it stated that: “The Presidency’s showcase intervention, the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) is not an achievement, it is an admission of failure. Loan disbursements, applications processed, and upkeep stipends paid are outputs. They are not outcomes. An education loan scheme becomes meaningful only if it is part of a system that is expanding access, improving quality, reducing dropout rates, retaining talent, and producing graduates who can contribute to a growing economy. By those measures, NELFUND exists against a backdrop of accelerating educational collapse.”

The Documented State of Education in Nigeria

Despite NELFUND and the claims of “several reforms and intervention programmes”, Nigeria continues to record the highest number of out-of-school children in the world. UNICEF data places the figure at approximately 18.3 million. One in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is Nigerian. This crisis has not been reversed under the current administration, rather it has persisted and, by multiple accounts, worsened in absolute terms.

With regard to federal education spending, Odibo, who also doubles as the Coordinator of Obidient Connect, the citizen-led, civic-tech platform designed to protect votes, and ensure real-time transmission of certified polling unit results in the 2027 election, stated that it remains chronically inadequate. Even at its highest absolute figure, the 2025 allocation of roughly N3.52 trillion represented only about 7.5% of the national budget, far below the UNESCO benchmark of 15–20%. In the 2026 budget, the allocation declined further to around 6.15%. Worse still, public education expenditure as a share of GDP remains in the low single digits (around 1.7–3%), among the weakest in the world.

The Big Tent further stated that tertiary education continues to suffer from structural underfunding, infrastructure decay, and industrial relations crises. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has repeatedly flagged implementation failures of agreements, delayed allowances, and reliance on internally generated revenue to meet obligations that should be met by the Federal Government. Establishing additional tertiary institutions without sustainable funding models compounds the problem rather than solving it.

Restating this government’s failure in education, Big Tent stated that: “Learning outcomes, teacher motivation, research capacity, and graduate employability remain severely constrained. Brain drain of academic talent continues. Campus facilities in public institutions are overstretched or dilapidated. These are not abstract complaints, they are the lived experience of students, parents, and lecturers across the country.”

According to Odibo, “NELFUND may ease temporary cash-flow pressures for a limited number of students. It does not reverse the systemic decline. It does not put 18 million children into classrooms. It does not raise the quality of teaching or research. It does not close the gap between budget announcements and actual delivery on campuses. Treating the existence of a loan scheme as proof of educational progress is the precise definition of substituting activity for results.”

 Tinubu’s Pattern of Governance

According to Big Tent, this approach is not limited to education. Across the economy and social sectors, this administration lists “reforms,” “interventions,” and “projects,” then demands that citizens accept the list as evidence of success. Meanwhile, the measurable outcomes such as purchasing power, employment quality, food security, security of life and property, and access to functional public services, have deteriorated for the majority of Nigerians.

Big Tent Coalition reminded the Presidency that frontline presidential candidate, Peter Obi, did not invent “renewed hopelessness”. “He simply named what citizens already feel. The Presidency’s response confirms the diagnosis – when confronted with outcomes, it retreats to outputs and then attacks the messenger. Nigerians deserve leaders who measure success by the condition of the people, not by the volume of press statements or the number of programmes launched. Until this administration shifts from announcing activities to delivering results, the charge of ‘renewed hopelessness’ will remain not only accurate, but unavoidable.”