Netizens blow hot as UNICEF claim 75% of Nigerian children are illiterate

Netizens have slammed the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) for stating that children in Nigeria can not read and write.

The report stated that seventy-five percent of children between the ages of seven and fourteen can not solve Math or read.

The UNICEF Nigeria representative, Cristian Munduate, during the International Day of Education made the statement on Tuesday. He urged people to help out with funds, invest in education for the children.

An excerpt of the statement read “On this International Day of Education, I join the global call to ‘invest in people, prioritise education’ and deliver on the commitments made by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari at the UN Secretary General’s Transforming Education Summit in September 2022 to end the global learning crisis.

“In Nigeria, 75 per cent of children aged 7 to 14 years cannot read a simple sentence or solve a basic math problem. For children to be able to read to learn, they must be able to learn to read in the first three years of schooling.

“As Nigeria’s presidential elections draw near, on behalf of UNICEF and the children in Nigeria, I call on all presidential candidates to include adequate investments in education as a top priority in their manifestos.”

Angry netizens who disagree with the statement took to their social media to fume over the false report.

Here are some of the reactions; “I totally disagree. Lol, they rate Africans low is things that are good, and rate us high in bad things that we are not even known for.”

“What data is this result based on? When was this data collected? What kind of statistics analysis was carried out. Where can we see the full report? Did the analysis include group statistics covering the six geopolitical zones, 36 states (inc FCT) ? Is this a longitudinal study?”

“Where did you get your facts from, the last time I checked, Nigeria have dominated the first world country. its nobody’s fault when the old western region embraced free education while the north did not value education as at then. at your own free time, check the number of graduates Nigerian produces annually? I challenge you to make the 75% derivation public.”

“UNICEF should stop all this nonsense cos even in Europe and america they have a lot of this people there but they don’t come out to say this things and the same Nigerian go there and make first class and they are looking for there doctor and nurses who are they fooling.”

“Teach us maths in our native languages we will understand it and stop using foreign language to teach us science and technology, but people was able to translate your religion books to our local languages, why can’t you do that with other books.”

“It very funny UNICEF I mean that the way west look at us hmmm na wa oooooo we have to start writing our own story and tell them not let them tell us about our talent, progress, development, culture and way of life…”

“They drive to a village in Jigawa, Northern Nigeria, carry out a survey and label it Nigeria, what they forget to tell you is that 99% of the children they saw can read Arabic. Literacy is not only define by learning English or your mathematics.

“An average Yoruba boy or girl that can count the numeral in Yoruba language from 1-20 can already naturally do addition, subtraction, division and multiplication because the Yoruba natural counting system is mathematical.

“I lived most of my life in Lagos and you’ll hardly ever see the presence of this UNICEF in the rural areas, all they have here is a big office and diplomats in trucks with towering antennas, go to the North and you’ll see them everywhere so apparently their data came from the north, they assumed it’s the same everywhere and roll out dead statistics to fuel their poverty ingraining exploits.”