In 2009, I traveled to Ogoja, the rural town in Southern Nigeria, where I was born. I had not visited the town since my family moved in 1988 when I was just three years old. I wanted  to learn more about the place I first lived as a child. I have had numerous conversations with my father about Ogoja, and he would often speak about its people, and how he missed them and their culture.

Once arriving in Ogoja after a six-hour journey from Calabar, where I live in Southern Nigeria, I was greeted by a group of young boys and girls at the bus stop, who rushed me, begging for money. The children were between six and fourteen years. When I asked them where they came from, they confessed that they were ‘Almajiris’ from Northern Nigeria. They had followed a lorry transporting goods from the northeastern town of Maiduguri in Borno State to Ogoja. They said they jumped into the lorry without knowing the driver, and had no idea of where the vehicle was heading.

Almajiri children need special help

An Almajiri child is known to be a Qur'anic student who mostly lives away from his family under the custody of his teacher called Mallam.

Almajiri children make up over 9 million of Nigeria’s 10.5 million out of school children, in part because they face barriers to attending school such as the need to provide their own lunches – a large burden for already poor families.

I was overwhelmed by the presence of so many out-of-school children and could not stop thinking about their plight and how to solve this crisis. With my friend Agafi Kunduli, who grew up as an Almajiri child, we founded 1 GAME Campaign aiming specifically at Almajiris helping them to enroll in and complete their basic education. The name ‘1 GAME’ means that anyone involved in the campaign, is asked to defeat violence, illiteracy and poverty - using education as a tool.

Since 2012, 1 GAME has worked in a dozen communities in Nigeria’s northeastern states of Borno, Yobe and Gombe, to ensure the most vulnerable children are in school by working directly with local communities. We focus on the importance of education by providing learning materials and creating local vigilante groups to protect children when in school.

Schools must be safe!

Nigeria’s biggest educational challenges include low investment from the government, high school costs, low numbers of qualified teachers, and poor school infrastructure, particularly in rural communities.

Most recently my country has been countering another major barrier to education – the safety of schools. Boko Haram has been attacking schools and organizations that enroll children in western-style education.

Their most recent act of terrorism was the kidnapping of over 200 secondary school girls in Chibok which attracted global condemnation. And we felt their violence too when in December 2012, Boko Haram attacked the 1 GAME Book Store Centre in Maiduguri, destroying thousands of exercise books and pens meant for distribution.

Girls’ education is paramount

The issue of girls’ education is another huge challenge in Nigeria. In the Northern region, the gender gap remains wide and the proportion of girls to boys in school ranges from one girl to two boys, sometimes three.

Cultural bias is a major cause of low enrollment for girls in the region. Most parents prefer to send their daughters to Qur’anic schools rather than formal schools out of fear for their safety.

There is also the issue of early marriage, which forces many girls miss to drop out of school.

Education needs to be a priority in Nigeria

Indeed, the Nigerian government must see education as a priority for every child. In doing so, they must invest in it. Increased funding will ensure that the poorest families aren’t forced to pay for their children’s schooling, ensure better equipped schools and adequately trained teachers with sufficient support. Schools should have proper governance and teachers need to be a regularly paid.

These are some of the issues I’ll be tackling with education authorities in Nigeria today, June 16, when the world celebrates the Day of the African Child. In the Southern Nigerian state of Cross River, I’ll be meeting the State Universal Basic Education Board to find ways of dealing with exam fees in public schools. Nearly 300,000 pupils are asked pay 150 Naira a session, a little below USD$1 before they can sit for exams. Yet, barely half of that number usually complies.

I have always insisted that no child should be excluded from quality education because of cost and will be working with the government today to make this a reality.

Let’s support the Global Partnership for Education

Later this month, I will travel to Brussels for the Global Partnership for Education replenishment conference on June 26. The prospect of seeing the global community come together to ensure sufficient and sustainable financing for education in 66 countries is something I am very excited about.

The possibility that the annual school cost of 29 million children in primary and lower-secondary school would be supported, gives me hope that the dream of having every child in school and learning isn’t far from accomplishing.

The education challenges I am working to solve in Nigeria are faced by many countries across the world. I will be in Brussels urgently awaiting a pledge from my government to increase their investment in our nation’s children.

I hope global donors to education will step up and do the same.