Every 5 October, Nigeria gathers to celebrate Teachers’ Day with fine speeches, matching T-shirts and communiqués about restoring dignity. Then 6 October comes and we return to the exact politics, economics and insecurity that our classrooms produced. We have failed to see the connection. The crisis in Aso Rock began in the classroom. The rot in the market began in the classroom. The gunfire in Zamfara and the ballot snatching in Kogi began in the classroom. Almost every stakeholder in Nigeria’s affairs today, from the President to the policeman, from the market woman to the militant, from the judge to the internet fraudster, was taught by a teacher. If we want to restructure and unite Nigeria, we must start not with another constitutional conference but with Teachers’ Day taken seriously as a rebuilding day.
Consider the chain. Elementary school is where a child first learns that stealing another child’s pencil has consequences. Post elementary school is where a teenager learns whether cheating in examinations will be punished or rewarded. Higher institution is where a young adult learns whether merit matters or sorting does. Did our political class emulate what they were taught, or did they learn something else entirely from the system we allowed teaching to become? The answer is visible in our politics. A country where teachers collect money to pass pupils, where continuous assessment is sold for five thousand naira, where admission is bought and not earned, will produce politicians who buy votes. The child who watched his teacher trade grades for money learns early that everything has a price. The student who saw his lecturer demand money or sex for marks learns that power is for extortion. We complain that over 250 billion naira in UBEC matching grants sits idle while classrooms collapse, that a former governor in Kwara allegedly diverted 5.78 billion naira meant for basic education, that Transparency International reports 66 per cent of education money is stolen. But where was diversion first modelled? Many saw it first in their own schools, where PTA levies disappeared and chalk money was pocketed.
The betrayal is not only by government. Parents are co-corruptors. The same parents who lament bad governance pay for miracle centres, pay to upgrade their children’s results, pay to post teachers away from rural schools, and then complain that the nation lacks integrity. The child learns two curricula. One on the blackboard and one from his parents’ wallet.
There are two types of teachers in Nigeria today and we must name them honestly. The first is the majority, the broken nation builders. They earn thirty thousand naira below minimum wage in the FCT, forty thousand naira for sixteen years’ experience in Rivers State, fifteen thousand naira with a master’s degree in Jos. They trek to rural postings with no accommodation, no hardship allowance, no security. They buy chalk from their own salaries, print questions from personal savings and use personal data and airtime to download lesson notes and run WhatsApp classes. In effect, they subsidise a system that starves them twice, with labour and with cash. They retire after thirty-five years and join a death queue under the sun, carrying files from office to office for verification. In Oyo State, Ademola Salami waited six years for gratuity, his pension vanishing to debt, borrowing to treat ulcer. The second is the minority who have bastardised the temple. They run miracle centres where WAEC answers are dictated for a fee. In higher institutions, some trade grades for cash or sex, supervise plagiarised projects and look away from cultism. When a pupil sees his teacher demand money to release results, he learns that public office is a toll gate. That lesson does not expire at graduation. It follows him to the local government council, to the police checkpoint, to the ministry.
This classroom history explains why restructuring and politics keep failing. Nigeria debates true federalism and local government autonomy. The Supreme Court in 2002 placed primary education under states, then in 2024 affirmed financial autonomy for 774 local governments. The Nigeria Union of Teachers warned this would impede salary payment, recalling past agony under councils. Former Governor Chris Ngige said council chairmen are more corrupt than governors. Why does restructuring fail? Because citizens who should hold chairmen accountable were taught in schools where accountability did not exist. Teachers’ Day can rebuild politics if we make teachers’ salaries a first-line charge through a National Teachers Service Commission, so no chairman can divert it, and publish every 5 October the status of seventy thousand naira minimum wage in all 774 areas. A teacher who is paid and protected can afford to teach a child that votes are not for sale. A hungry teacher cannot.
Economics tells the same story, but with a second layer of exploitation. Public schools starve teachers through diversion. Private schools starve them through greed. Many owners collect one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand naira per term per child and pay teachers fifteen thousand to forty thousand naira, with no contract, no pension, no right to unionise. The NLC has demanded that private teachers be allowed to form and join unions, but enforcement is weak. Nigeria needs 250,000 new teachers annually according to UNESCO. Over seventy per cent of our children lack foundational literacy. Between 10.5 and 18.3 million children are out of school. Over 5,000 lecturers leave yearly, 2,300 relocated to the United Kingdom since 2021. The University of Lagos lost 1,800 of 3,000 academics, leaving 1,200 to serve 50,000 students at a ratio of one to sixty. No economy grows when its workforce cannot read instructions. No technology ecosystem thrives when its teachers earn less than security guards. Finland accepts only the top ten per cent into teaching and requires master’s degrees. Singapore benchmarks salaries against the private sector with one hundred hours of paid development yearly. A well-paid teacher produces a productive worker. A starved teacher produces learning poverty, which produces unemployment, which produces insecurity.
Security is inseparable from teaching. Every bandit was once a pupil. In Benue, Borno, Zamfara and Niger, the teacher is the first IDP officer, trauma counsellor and security alert system. When teachers bribe to avoid rural postings because there is no house, no light and no security allowance, schools close permanently and become camps for bandits. Teachers keep children in school and out of the bush. Abandon teachers and you create ungoverned spaces.
Unity also starts in the classroom. No profession touches every tribe and religion like teaching. That classroom is the first Nigeria. If that classroom is fair, where the poor child can still come first without paying for grades, the child learns that Nigeria can be fair. Unity also starts with language. When teachers are not trained or motivated to use mother tongue in early years, children learn in a language they do not understand, fail early and see education as alien. A motivated teacher is the first restructuring tool. There is also the girl-child link that we ignore. Primary teaching is dominated by women, many widows and single mothers. When you break female teachers, you break the first role model for girls. That fuels out-of-school girls, early marriage and intergenerational poverty.
Regulation has collapsed. We licence doctors and lawyers seriously. The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria is treated as paperwork. Many miracle centre operators and sex-for-grades lecturers still hold valid licences. Without enforcement, the corrupt minority pollutes the majority. Perhaps the most shameful irony is that many schools do not even observe Teachers’ Day. On 5 October, while the world pauses to honour teachers, some private schools force teachers to teach as normal, with no mention of the day, no holiday, no appreciation, because every hour is revenue. Some public schools mark it only on paper, with a circular and no assembly. Pupils are not taught why the day matters. If a school cannot spare one day to honour the teacher who holds its business, how will that school teach gratitude or nation building?
Yet there is a perpetrator we have pampered with silence, the union itself. In any sane system, the union should be the shield of the teacher. In Nigeria, it has too often become the second oppressor. The wickedness is methodical. Every month, check-off dues, development levies, welfare levies, co-operative deductions and endless special contributions are deducted at source from teachers who already earn below minimum wage. A teacher in Jos earning fifteen thousand naira loses a percentage to a union that cannot guarantee his salary. A teacher in Rivers earning forty thousand naira pays dues for sixteen years and still has no house, no health insurance and no legal defence when his salary is slashed. What is there to show for it? No functional housing scheme, no credible health cover, no pension follow-up that ends the death queue, no litigation fund that protects a teacher sacked for refusing to falsify results.
Worse is how teachers are silenced. Any teacher who complains is labelled anti-union or anti-government. Queries are weaponised. Transfers to remote villages are used as punishment. Branch meetings are choreographed to endorse leaders who have stayed for decades. Dissenting teachers are told to be patient, to be loyal, to understand the politics, while the leadership romances government in Government Houses. We have seen this romance repeatedly. Strikes are called, teachers stay home for months without pay, children are locked out, parents suffer, then a deal is struck behind closed doors. The strike is suspended with no clear gain for members, but with juicy appointments, board memberships, land allocations, political tickets or quiet settlements for leaders. The rank and file returns to class poorer, with arrears converted to half pay in the name of compassion. This is not unionism. It is trading collective pain for personal relevance. It is why primary school teachers in the FCT stayed on strike for months over seventy thousand naira minimum wage while area councils claimed they had no money, despite increased federal allocation, and union statements oscillated between threat and appeasement.
The union also inconveniences teachers with policies that protect its revenue, not its members. It fights against private school teachers being allowed to unionise freely because independent unions threaten its monopoly. It supports compulsory levies for events and conferences teachers cannot afford to attend. It issues directives that teachers must not speak to the press about unpaid salaries, while it speaks to the press about solidarity visits to governors. How many retired teachers, like Ademola Salami, died waiting for gratuity while their union deducted welfare dues for a welfare that never came? How many teachers with chronic ulcer, anxiety and depression, which UNESCO says affects one in three educators in sub-Saharan Africa, have received mental health support from dues they paid?
This must be said plainly because Teachers’ Day will not rebuild Nigeria if we rebuild everything except the house that claims to represent teachers. Government diversion, private owner greed, parent complicity, corrupt teachers and union betrayal form a full circle of exploitation. The teacher is taxed by all and defended by none.
What must change from this Teachers’ Day? First, make observance compulsory. Every school, public and private, must mark 5 October with pupils, parents and alumni, not as a holiday for revenue loss but as a civic duty. Second, make it a policy day. Publish UBEC utilisation with a public dashboard, publish minimum wage compliance in all 774 local government areas and punish diversion. Third, end the death queue. Automate gratuities and pensions and pay on time. Fourth, fix two exploitations at once. Enforce minimum wage and union rights in private schools and ring-fence public salaries through first-line charge. Fifth, stop the data tax. Provide tools and data allowance so teachers stop paying to teach. Sixth, enforce TRCN licensing and sanction miracle centres and sex-for-grades. Seventh, and crucially, reform union accountability. Audit union dues, publish annual accounts, cap tenure of officials, criminalise diversion of welfare funds, protect whistle-blowing teachers from transfer and victimisation, and allow private school teachers to form and join unions without intimidation. A union that cannot account for dues, cannot defend a teacher owed six years gratuity, cannot protect a fifteen thousand naira earner, has lost its moral right to deduct a kobo.
Nigeria’s problems were not imported. They were taught, lesson by lesson, in classrooms we abandoned and corrupted, with complicity from government, some owners, some parents, some teachers and now, painfully, from the very unions that should have been the last defence. Its solutions will also be taught, if we rebuild the teacher and rescue his shield. If we get Teachers’ Day right, with honest teachers, accountable unions and a state that pays what it budgets, we may yet get Nigeria right.
Fẹ́mi Akínṣọlá is a public affairs analyst and development writer.
