December 5, 2025
A nation may not collapse in a single day, but it certainly decays in silence—bit by bit, value by value, until the cracks become too wide to ignore. In Nigeria, one of the deepest of these cracks lies in the way we treat our teachers. From the corridors of our universities to the dusty floors of our primary schools, the story is painfully the same: neglect, humiliation, and a heartbreaking disregard for the people who shape our collective future.
For decades, scholars warned us that the destruction of education begins with the destruction of those who deliver it. Paulo Freire reminded the world that teachers are not carriers of information but co-creators of humanity. John Dewey insisted that education is not preparation for life—it is life. Yet in Nigeria, we behave as though teachers are inconveniences we are cursed to tolerate rather than pillars we are blessed to have.
Our own thinkers spoke with equal clarity. Chinua Achebe wrote that Nigeria’s problem lies in its lack of respect for human dignity and merit. Claude Ake declared that a nation that invests in everything except its people is already committing slow suicide. Today, their predictions echo loudly in our classrooms, lecture halls, and examination offices.
Nowhere is this betrayal more visible than in the universities—spaces meant to be the engines of national innovation. Here, senior lecturers with PhDs, decades of experience, and international publications earn salaries that insult their dedication. They teach in overcrowded lecture halls without functioning projectors, conduct research without grants, and share outdated computers in offices that lack electricity. Many of them moonlight as consultants, tutors, or part-time artisans to survive. When Jeffrey Sachs said that poverty in developing nations is the result of policy choices, he may as well have been speaking about Nigeria’s academic system.
The same story unfolds in secondary schools—the fragile bridge between childhood and adulthood. Teachers handle classrooms of 80 to 120 students, often buying teaching materials from their own pockets. Their salaries arrive late, sometimes months behind schedule. Their promotions are symbolic gestures without financial implementation. They are expected to produce excellent WAEC and NECO results in classrooms that lack desks, fans, libraries, or even windows. Durkheim was clear: education is how societies transmit values and discipline. But what values can a teacher pass on when he is fighting a system that denies him even the basic dignity of prompt pay?
Yet the tragedy begins even earlier, in our primary schools—where the foundation of every child’s cognitive and emotional development is laid. Here, teachers are often paid less than what some families spend on monthly groceries. In many parts of the country, they earn ₦25,000 to ₦40,000. They teach in buildings with cracked walls and collapsing roofs. Pupils sit on bare floors because chairs are a luxury. Teachers improvise with bottle caps and charcoal because there are no textbooks or teaching aids. In some local governments, primary school teachers go months without salary, yet they wake up every morning to shape the minds of six-year-olds who look up to them with innocent expectation.
These are the people we expect to prepare our children for the future.
Across all levels of Nigeria’s education system, the message remains depressingly consistent: the nation does not value its teachers. And if a country does not value its teachers, it does not value learning. And if it does not value learning, it cannot hope to rise.
This is why our young people now laugh at books, mock intellectual effort, and believe success comes from shortcuts instead of hard work. If the adults who teach them look tired, hungry, and defeated, what lesson are they expected to learn? If the nation treats teachers as beggars, why should students treat education as treasure?
Yet despite the gloom, hope is not dead.
The reflection that inspired this essay is more than a complaint—it is a call to action. Countries that once sat where Nigeria sits today—Finland, Singapore, South Korea—rose to global prominence not by discovering oil or electing perfect leaders but by respecting, empowering, and investing in their teachers.
Nigeria can still do the same. But it must start by restoring the dignity of those who stand in front of blackboards and lecture halls.
Parents must demand better.
Policymakers must act with sincerity, not slogans.
Society must stop blaming teachers for a system they did not design.
And teachers—those remarkable pillars—must continue to rise each morning with courage, dignity, and devotion, even when the nation forgets to thank them.
Nelson Mandela famously said that education is the most powerful weapon with which to change the world. In Nigeria, that weapon is rusting—not because the teachers are unworthy, but because the nation has refused to clean, sharpen, or honour it.
Our future does not depend on mineral resources or political promises. It depends on the men and women whose hands are stained with ink and chalk, whose eyes are tired but hopeful, and whose hearts still believe that every child is a seed worth nurturing.
If we fail them, we fail ourselves.
But if we honour them, we save our tomorrow.
Because without teachers, there is no nation—only a country stumbling in the dark, clutching dreams it never bothered to cultivate.
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Opinion