Former Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Osita Chidoka, has stressed the importance of giving priority to education in Nigeria over the construction of infrastructure such as roads, airports and buildings.

Chidoka aired his opinion on Friday in a post shared on the official X account of the Federal Ministry of Education, with the former minister stating that Nigeria’s 15 million out-of-school children face permanent lost opportunities unlike delayed infrastructure projects.

“Roads can wait. Buildings can wait. Airports can wait. Education cannot. The road we fail to build today can still be built tomorrow. The airport that was delayed this year may still serve future generations. But the child pushed out of school by policy failure is often lost forever,” he said.

“Every year, one of Nigeria’s roughly 15 million out-of-school children loses a narrow window that may never reopen. When reforms eventually come, they benefit a different cohort, not the child already left behind.”

Chidoka highlighted the new National Education Data Infrastructure and Nigeria Education Management Information System (developed with Ernst & Young) as a key tool.

He also revealed that major enrollment drops between primary and junior secondary plus the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) admission bottlenecks that challenge policy assumptions.

“That is why yesterday’s National Stakeholders Meeting on the National Education Data Infrastructure, led by the Honourable Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, struck me as profoundly consequential. In many ways, it may become one of the most important national infrastructure projects Nigeria has undertaken in recent years,” Chidoka explained.

“Data from all states were available on the portal, from school enrollment to the state of physical infrastructure to the student-teacher ratio. A mind-boggling quantum of data, made easy to understand, compare, and drive policy.

“The Nigeria Education Management Information System, designed by Ernst & Young, the company that developed a similar system in India, is a national treasure: robust yet simple.

“Sitting in that room, I watched evidence do what argument alone often cannot. Two figures stayed with me. The first was the gap between primary school enrolment and junior secondary enrolment. The drop is so wide that I found myself asking the obvious question: what happened to those children?

“Where did they go between Primary Six and JSS One? A generation appears to thin out between those two rungs, and we owe ourselves an honest answer.”

He noted that the second was the composition of JAMB candidates: fresh entrants versus repeat candidates, lamenting that the ratio revealed an admission bottleneck he is yet to fully grasp.

According to him, too many qualified young Nigerians are queuing behind the same narrow gate, year after year, but suddenly, the Minister of Education’s policy direction on easing admission bottlenecks, which he had instinctively questioned, began to make sense to him.

Chidoka said that is the power of credible, real-time data, as it does not merely inform policy, it humbles assumptions.

He further expressed gratitude with NgREN’s work delivering digital connectivity to tertiary institutions in 2026 and secondary schools in 2027, positioning data as a foundation for evidence-based decisions and questioning when other government sectors will adopt similar approaches.

“I am grateful to be contributing my own quota through the Nigeria Research and Education Network (NgREN). We have committed to delivering connectivity and digital services to tertiary institutions this year, and to extending similar infrastructure to secondary schools in 2027,” he said.

What is happening in education, according to Chidoka, may not yet dominate the headlines, but something important is taking shape quietly beneath the surface.

The former minister said that the evidence is beginning to replace assertion, while data is starting to shape decisions.

“The question on my mind: If evidence can transform education governance, when will the rest of the government follow?,” Chidoka pondered.