If I am elected governor, I will bring back my children to Nigeria from England to attend public schools in this state as a proof of my strong belief in this country.” With these words, uttered at an interactive session with journalists at the Nigerian Union of Journalists’ Press Centre, Awka, during campaigns for the 2003 governorship elections, Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, tried hard to sway voters in his direction in the election that brought him to power. That is just one of the numerous promises the governor made to his people during the then fierce and titanic scramble for votes.

Schools that governors’ children attend

But just about a year to the expiration of his four-year tenure, Obi is yet to keep his promise. Ostensibly because he has been unable to fix the largely unequipped and dilapidated public schools in his state to his children’s taste and motivate the state’s terribly demoralised teachers, the governor has, despite his pledge, left his children to continue to benefit from the high quality education that the United Kingdom offers. “I knew from the start that it was an empty promise meant to lure voters. The education sector here is in total decay and I can’t imagine the governor or any government official for that matter allowing their children to attend public schools,” said an indigene of Anambra State, who preferred not to be named. Mike Udah, Obi’s press secretary, confirmed that the governor’s children were still in England where he said they lived and schooled before their father came home to run for the governorship of his state. Udah did not however explain why his boss failed to keep his promise to bring back his children to Nigeria to school with their contemporaries in the state.

But the Anambra State governor is just a straw in a haystack. From Niger to Ogun, Ekiti to Kaduna and Akwa Ibom to Kwara, state governors and top government officials have, more often than not, shunned public schools in the education of their children. Investigations in some states across the country indicate that most governors rode to power on the crest of promises that they were going to fix public schools in their states in a manner that would make it unnecessary for the rich and the powerful to continue to send their wards to expensive private schools either here in Nigeria or abroad. But in most cases, the states’ chief executives have failed to deliver on these promises and have therefore kept their children away from a public education system which offers very little in terms of quality and standard. For instance, the governor of the 12-year-old Ekiti State, Mr. Segun Oni, who has repeatedly claimed to be transforming education in his state, has his two children schooling abroad. His first child Yemisi is in a school in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirate while the second, Folawe, attends an unnamed school in England.

As it is with Oni, so it is with Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State. Since he came to power in 2003, Daniel has established a university of education and four IT polytechnics in his state in addition to the existing state-owned Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ago Iwoye, the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic in Abeokuta and the Tai Solarin College of Education in Ijebu-Ode. But the governor did not consider any of these schools good enough for any of his children. Rotimi, the governor’s first son, who is undergoing the mandatory one-year national service in Ogun State, studied Computer Engineering at Babcock University, Ilisan, owned by the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The governor’s other children are said to be attending expensive schools in the United Kingdom.

The Niger State Governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, the self-acclaimed chief servant, has also snubbed all the schools in Nigeria as his six children are said to be studying abroad. The governor’s media aide, Alhaji Bala Abdulkhadir, explained that his boss’ children had been schooling abroad before their father was elected governor in April 2007. Abdulkadir stated further that Aliyu’s decision to send his children to foreign schools was due to the decay in the nation’s education system, a situation he said the governor was confronting headlong in his state. Aliyu’s counterpart in Enugu State, Governor Sullivan Chime, however, has his four children schooling in Enugu. Investigations showed that two are in a private university, Caritas University, Emene, while one is said to be at the University of Nigeria, Enugu campus. Reports indicate that the last child is currently processing his university admission.

Five of the children of Kaduna State Governor, Alhaji Namadi Sambo, are pupils in one of the most expensive secondary schools in the state while his sixth child is currently studying in one of the tertiary institutions in the United Kingdom.

At the highbrow Zamani College, Malali Government Reservation Area, Kaduna, where Governor Sambo’s five other children are schooling, our correspondent gathered that each student pays between N70,000 and N100,000 per term as tuition fee. Asked why this is so, the governor’s Special Adviser, Media and Public Affairs, Mallam Umar Sani, explained that the governor decided to enroll his children in Zamani because the school was close to his official residence. “I think he (Governor Sambo) decided to put them there because of the proximity to his residence,” Sani said.

In addition to the University of Ibadan, there is also the Ladoke Akintola University of Science and Technology in Oyo State. But these two public universities appear unimpressive to the Oyo State Governor, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, who has enrolled three of his children at the nearby Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State, owned by the Baptist Mission. The only child of his second wife, Kemi, is barely two-years-old and yet to start school. Akala’s counterpart in Akwa Ibom State, Governor Godswill Akpabio, also has his two children at the high-profile Corona International School in Lagos. Before becoming governor, Akpabio was for several years a commissioner in his state but could not take the risk of sending his kids to public schools in the state, which are substandard in all ramifications. The governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Usoro Usoro, however said it was not wrong for public officials who could afford it to send their children to private schools once they could afford it.

Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi, Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers and Babatunde Fashola of Lagos also have their children in various private schools in their states. While Yuguda’s children are in schools in London, Kaduna and Abuja, Fashola has three of his sons in a private school in Lagos while his fourth son attends a government-owned school in Kwara State.

The children of the River State Governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, were said to be studying at the Bells International School, owned by former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, in Ogun State. But shortly before the expiration of his tenure as the speaker of the state assembly in 2007, Amaechi fell out with the then Governor, Dr. Peter Odili.

In the power play that resulted in his being withdrawn from contesting the governorship election under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, Amaechi was hounded out of the state. His properties were thrown out of his official residence even before he was due to vacate the property, leading to his immediate relocation of his family from the state. He was said to have stayed outside the country throughout the period his case lasted in the courts and only came in when the Supreme Court declared him governor. His children, who were relocated in the heat of the crisis, have remained in schools outside the country due to what a source described as grave security concern. The exact location of his children has, however, remained unknown.

The schools being attended by the children of the Bayelsa State Governor, Mr. Timipre Sylva is also a closely guarded secret in the state. For fear that militants might be planning to kidnap his children, the governor is said to have kept almost everybody in the state in the dark regarding his kids’ schools. ”Given the security implications of your investigation, I regret to inform you that my office cannot be of any help,” the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Doifie Ola, said, in response to our correspondent’s enquiry on the matter. But there are indications that the governor’s children are in expensive private schools outside the state.

In saner climes, there is always uproar when government officials prefer to put their children in private schools. There was a huge debate in the United States over whether President-elect Barack Obama should send his children to either public or private school. A poll conducted on the matter in The Guardian of London on November 11, 2008, said 52 per cent of respondents were of the view that the Obama girls should be enrolled in public school in Washington while 47.4 per cent urged the Obamas to put their children in private school.

But such issues do not elicit debates in Nigeria and public office holders here have continued to avoid public schools like a plague. The private schools are kings here while the public schools have been in ground zero.

-Additional reports by Emmanuel Obe, Akin Oyedele, Jude Owuamanam, Tunde Odesola, Ibanga Isine, Olamilekan Lartey, Francis Falola, Ademola Oni, Segun Olatunji, Bisi Olaniyi, Adelani Adepegba, Chukwudi Akasike and Mudiaga Affe.

its same everywhere our politician say what they don't mean and mean what they don't say.