‘You have no moral standing’ — Oby Ezekwesili condemns Tinubu, Governors, on Children’s Day

• The former education minister cited kidnappings, hunger and rising out-of-school numbers as evidence of systemic failure.

• Ezekwesili described Children’s Day in Nigeria as a “National Day of Shame” rather than a celebration.

Former Minister of Education and co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls movement, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, has issued a blistering warning to President Bola Tinubu, state governors, the National Assembly and Nigeria's entire political class telling them they have forfeited the right to celebrate Children's Day.

In a lengthy post on X on Wednesday, May 27 (Children's Day) Ezekwesili said the political class had "abandoned, betrayed, and condemned" Nigerian children to lives of suffering and had no moral justification to issue celebratory messages.

"Do not dare open your mouths on May 27 to wish Nigerian children a Happy Children's Day," she wrote. "You have no moral standing to wish anything to Nigerian children. None."

Ezekwesili is one of Nigeria's most credentialed voices on governance and education. She served as Nigeria's Minister of Education from 2006 to 2007, and before that as Minister of Solid Minerals from 2005 to 2006. She later served as Vice President of the World Bank for the Africa Region from 2007 to 2012.

She co-founded Transparency International, co-convened the #BringBackOurGirls movement in 2014, and was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2015. She ran for president in 2019 and has remained one of the most consistent critics of Nigeria's political establishment ever since.

Ezekwesili's post ran across three parts and catalogued a damning list of abductions and governance failures she said made any celebration of Children's Day an act of hypocrisy.

She referenced the 39 students and 7 teachers seized from schools in Oriire district of Oyo State on May 15, 2026, the 303 students and 12 teachers taken from St. Mary's Catholic School in Papiri, Niger State in November 2025, and the 287 students abducted from Government Secondary School in Kuriga, Kaduna State in March 2024.

She also invoked the Chibok girls, over 90 of whom remain missing more than 12 years after their abduction on April 14, 2014, the same crisis that first brought Ezekwesili to global attention.

Beyond abductions, she cited statistics that she said reflected the full scale of the failure. 

According to the UN World Food Programme, an estimated 35 million people could go hungry in Nigeria in 2026, among whom she said millions of children were suffering from stunted growth and diminished development as a direct result of governance failure.

She also cited figures showing around 19 million Nigerian children (27 per cent) do not attend school, and that 70 per cent of Nigerian children aged 10 cannot read a simple sentence.

"This is not a Happy Children's Day," she wrote. "The reality is a National Day of Shame."

Tuesday's statement is part of a consistent record. In November 2025, Ezekwesili said the Tinubu administration's failure to protect schoolchildren was "the highest acceptance of governing without legitimacy," and described the pattern of school abductions as deliberate negligence amounting to a crime.

Ezekwesili closed her statement with a direct message to the president and the political class.

"A government that cannot protect its children has forfeited the right to celebrate them," she wrote. "You have not earned the right to speak to our children today. Don't you dare. Period."

READ NEXT: 221 Nigerians rescued, 317 terrorists killed in one month — Nigerian Army reveal May operations