The Ambassador of Sweden to Nigeria, Her Excellency Anna Westerholm, was the special guest of honour at the graduation ceremony (Kindergarten 2 and Primary 5 pupils) of my wife’s Not Forgotten Initiative (NFI) School last Thursday in Abuja. “When I visited this school (last December), what stayed with me was not just the privilege of reading a book together with you. What stayed with me was the curiosity I saw in your eyes,” she told the pupils to whom she had shared the story of the fictional Swedish girl Pippi Longstocking in Nigerian Pidgin just a few months ago. “I remember your laughter, your confidence, and how eager you were to participate, ask questions, and share your thoughts…I want to encourage you to hold on to those qualities.”
Sadly, holding on to those qualities is what is now at threat. Not because the children do not want to continue learning but because there is now a challenge beyond them. And here is the brief: Some years ago, as the NFI School began to outgrow its modest structures my wife approached a neighbour whose husband owned the adjoining plot, asking whether she could use part of it. A few days later, apparently having obtained the consent of her husband, the woman gave the permission. No paperwork or conditions. Just one mother looking at other people’s children and deciding they deserved more room than they had. We accepted the gesture with gratitude and built two classrooms, a library, computer room, ‘cinema room’, kitchen and store. Always conscious that we were beneficiaries of another family’s generosity.
Three years ago, her husband passed away. Out of respect for a family that has been generous, I will not put the name down in this column. But then, death has a way of rearranging property, understanding and, sometimes, old acts of kindness. The people that are now responsible for the man’s estate have asked that we return the portion of land onto which the NFI School expanded back to them today, 30th July 2026. I want to be fair to this family, because fairness is owed. Nothing in this column should be read as a grievance against people exercising their right to a property that belongs to them. And I will not in any way question the considerations behind their request. But the reality is simply that, after years of serving dozens of vulnerable children, those classrooms will now come down.
Currently, we have 128 pupils in NFI primary school, 14 students in Federal Government Girls Colleges (FGGC) Bwari, 12 students in Federal Technical College (FTC) Orozo and seven in some Abuja private secondary schools through a partnership arrangement. All these children are on free education. The NFI School also has 14 teachers and five support staff. As my wife said last Thursday at the graduation ceremony, the stories of these children have been rewritten because some people believe in them. “Many of our children first arrived unable to read or write in English. Some spoke only Hausa. Many had never experienced structured learning,” my wife reminded the audience last Thursday. “Today they read confidently. They communicate effectively. They think critically. They dream boldly. Most importantly, they now have the confidence to compete successfully with other children anywhere in Nigeria.”
Incidentally, this is not the first time the NFI School’s hold on its own ground has felt uncertain. Five years ago, in this same column, I wrote about the very first classrooms my wife built on an empty plot. That plot, oddly, has never given us a moment’s trouble. The wider story of how we got here is one I have told before, https://www.thisdaylive.com/2021/04/01/amatala-and-other-unforgotten-children/ and earlier in the year, that story was amplified by my colleague, Simon Kolawole in his column, https://www.thisdaylive.com/2026/02/08/left-behind-but-not-forgotten/ But for the benefit of readers meeting NFI for the first time, let me summarise the story.
In December 2018, my wife turned a plea from a struggling mother who wanted her son in school and had nowhere left to turn, into two classrooms on an empty land nobody appeared to be using. Fourteen children came. Then more arrived, the way need tends to multiply once word travels through a community that someone is finally listening. A second classroom followed, then a third, eventually seven, staffed by teachers we hired one at a time as the numbers made it unavoidable. What began as an act of neighbourliness became, almost without our noticing, an institution: free lessons, one-meal-a-day, free uniforms, and scholarships. With the total commitment of my wife, the education the children are given is also structured, rigorous and transformational. That is why they keep passing Common Entrance examinations to secure admissions into highly competitive secondary schools.
Yet these are children whose parents live at the margins of society. Some of them were, years ago, children nobody expected to ever sit before a blackboard. Children who, along with their siblings and parents, fought a daily war against hunger. The NFI School has taught these children to imagine a life larger than the one they were born into. Take that away, even partially, and picture what moves in to fill the space.
Over the years, these children have had more than classroom education. They have been exposed to the kind of opportunities some of us never even had while their age. They undertake regular excursions to important places in Abuja. Through Ms Ibilola (Otegbade) Essien, some of them attended UNICEF programmes and twice met and took photographs with former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. To fire their imaginations, they have also received several prominent people in their classrooms. From Seyi Adekunle (VODI) to Hollywood filmmaker, Ose Oyamendan to Senators (Bello Mandiya, Tolu Odebiyi et al) to Ambassador Lot Egopija to chartered accountant, Gbenga Badejo to former Sports Minister and current ADC National Publicity Secretary, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, to (now retired) federal permanent secretary, Dr Yakubu Kofarmata to the former Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) acting Executive Secretary, Hajiya Zaliha’u Ahmed and many others. Former Education Minister, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili celebrated her 60th birthday with them. MacArthur Foundation Director, Dr Kole Shettima regularly buys for them (and their parents) clothes. And my wife’s biggest supporter, Ms Koyinsola Olukoya makes it a point of duty to take food and all kinds of goodies to those that are now in FGGC and FTC on their visiting days! Sadly, three people who have been with us on this journey right from the beginning are now of blessed memory: Mr Ferdinand Agu, Pastor Theo Martins and my cousin, Dr Olawale Banmore.
We allow prominent people into the classrooms to share their stories to encourage them that where they are coming from is not what matters but the future that is before them with education. At the ceremony last Thursday, we were joined by some of the people who frequent the school: the Executive Director, Pro-health International, Dr Iko Ibanga, publisher of Abuja Enquirer, Mr Dan Akpovwa, Baze University Vice Chancellor, Professor Biodun Adeniyi, Executive Commissioner (Operations), Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Mr Louis Odion, former ADC to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Brigadier General Mustapha Onoyiveta (rtd) and wife, Hassana. Dr Ngozi Azodoh, Dr Kole Shettima, Mrs Dupe Ogundimu, Mr Yinka Medupin, Patrick and Amaka Uzoma and several others also joined us.
Where do we go from here? I will not pretend to have an answer. For now, I don’t. But years of watching my wife run this project have taught me that Nigeria’s most vulnerable children are rarely failed by a shortage of good intentions. They are failed by the absence of infrastructure behind those intentions. While I may not know where these children go from here, I know where they came from and that too many of them had already known more abandonment than any child should. After everything we have watched them become, we cannot accept that this should be where their story turns back on itself. So, for the first time, I am not ashamed to ask for help on how to secure a structure that properly accommodates those children in a school they can call their own. I have for years been reluctant to go this route. And I probably wouldn’t, had the idea of quietly helping a few children not turned into what is now a rather huge project.
However, I am certain that the education of the NFI School children will not be stopped as a result of this temporary setback. My confidence stems from the fact that we have too many hand-lifters for that to happen. Every Thursday without fail, the children are treated to delicacies from Metro Bakery and Restaurant courtesy of Mrs Sandra Adio. They have had executive (volunteer) teachers, among them Mrs Funke Abegunde who retired recently from American International School. And childhood education specialists, Mrs Stella Uzu and Mrs Tosin Afolayan. The promoters and encouragers include former AIT Managing Director, Dr (Mrs) Oluwatosin Dokpesi, the Exective Director, Funtaj International School, Mrs Funke Ibrahim, Chairman of Phase3 Telecoms, Mr Stanley Jegede and wife, Mosunmola, the COO of the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Mr Babatunde Ahmadu, my big sister, Mrs Maryam Uwais and my social media ‘English teacher’, Mrs Hadiza El-Rufai, as well as the FCCPC Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Tunji Bello. Gving.ng, Abuja Runs Club, Father George Ehusani, Mrs Fatima Wali-Abdurrahman, Mrs Fatima Modupe, Mr Tunde Adetoba, Mr Bolaji Adebiyi, Ms Chinelo Anohu, Mr Afolabi Ajimoti, Mrs Yoyinsola Makanjuola, Mr Edo Ukpong, Mrs Naomi Emmanuel, Ms Ify Malo, Pastors Dayo Kayode and Lanre Oduola and their wives are among other numerous NFI School supporters. Indeed, the list of the people who have helped us, one way or another, on this journey is long. I highlighted a few in the 2021 column earlier referenced, including the role my friend Folorunsho (Foli) Coker played on the feeding idea. Our three children have also played tremendous roles while I cannot count the number of shipments of instructional materials from my US-based brother-in-law, Segun Salami.
But I must make this quick point here. I am well aware that there are countless versions of the NFI schools scattered across Nigeria, sustained by people with far fewer resources than my wife and I have had. I suspect that many of them are only one notice away from finding themselves exactly where we are today. That something as essential as a school for vulnerable children should depend on chance rather than on any coherent framework says a lot about a country that has yet to decide whether educating its poorest children is a shared public obligation or a private act of charity. But if there is one thing eight years of watching my wife run this school has taught me, it is that Nigeria’s out-of-school children crisis has never really been a problem of resources.
With little more than an empty plot and an obstinate refusal to accept that these children were beyond saving, my wife has taken boys and girls who should have been hawking on the streets and put them behind school desks instead. She did not wait for a government programme or a donor intervention. Yes, my wife does all the purchases, including of foodstuff and runs the kitchen that feeds the children, to save cost. But if one woman, working with modest means, could prove that this is possible, then I find it difficult to accept that governments, with their budgets, institutions and constitutional responsibilities, cannot do the same on a far greater scale.
My wife’s experience has also convinced me that we have fundamentally misunderstood where Nigeria’s education crisis began. We have become obsessed with the roof while neglecting the foundation. Our debates revolve around universities, ASUU strikes, graduate unemployment and global rankings, as though the deficiencies we see at the tertiary level somehow originate there. They do not. They begin in the primary school classroom, where too many children spend their formative years without qualified teachers, textbooks, classrooms or even the assurance that learning matters. By the time they reach our universities, for those who make it that far, the damage has already been done.
We lament graduates who cannot communicate clearly, analyse problems or think critically, yet these are not failures of higher education alone. They are the accumulated consequences of years of neglect at the most important stage of learning. The Bible poses the question with characteristic economy: “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3). That, to my mind, is the question before us. We can continue repairing the roof of our education system, introducing one reform after another at the tertiary level, but until we return to the foundation, we should not be surprised that the house refuses to stand.
Credit: Olusegun Adeniyi