The First Lady, Aisha Buhari, has been installed the Grand Patron, High Level Women Advocates for Girl-Child education in Nigeria, even as she pledged to advocate for legislation against child marriage.
Speaking during an advocacy visit of 50 adolescent girls to her in Abuja, Aisha Buhari encouraged parents to keep their daughters in school for at least 12 years, adding “no single girl will be left behind in my movement to get every girl into school.”
Her investiture was part of the activities to end the commemoration of this year’s International Day of the Girl-Child with the theme: “The Power of the Adolescent Girl: Vision for 2030”.
In a related development, Aisha Buhari called on Nigerian students to use education as a tool for national development.
Aisha, who was represented by the wife of the Senate President, Toyin Saraki, said this when the chairman of the Advisory Board at the President’s School Debate Nigeria (PSDN), paid her courtesy visit in Abuja.
“I am exceedingly proud of the young citizens that have taken education as a way forward for the national development,” she said, adding that students, through education, were empowered and had enabled them to represent Nigeria in Singapore for a debate.
“You have done so well and made Nigeria proud. I am proud of you and hope that other young Nigerians will look at your achievement and emulate,” she said.
She urged other students in the country to emulate the example, to make the country a great nation.
The president’s wife commended the organisers and students for doing well at the Singapore debate competition, adding that “we hope to celebrate your progress, productivity and success in the next years.”
Speaking earlier, the chairman of PSDN, Professor Jerry Agada, also a former minister of education, said that PSDN was a national debating body established by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2001 to promote debating culture in the formal schools.
Agada said the body started organisation and management of competitive debate in primary and secondary schools in the country.
He said the organisation had been partnering with the Ministry of Education, Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and the State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEB) and the private sector.
He said PSDN had been a member of the World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC) and it had been participating at the global debating fora.
He said PSDN participated at the Qatar, Scotland, South Africa, Czech Republic and Thailand debates and had just returned from 2015 championships in Singapore.
He urged the president’s wife to encourage the wives of state governors to collaborate with PSDN in the planning and implementation of state and local government activities.
He said that the objective of the organisation was to promote globally accepted debating skills in school age children and to foster the ability of the younger generation of Nigerians to present logical arguments in academics among others.
A cross section of the students called on the federal government to provide adequate learning materials in schools across the country.
They said it would enable more students to participate in the programme, adding that government should sponsor more students on the programme.
