“I want to be a doctor so I can fix people. But my uncle says girls in our house don’t go to school for long. They get married.”

These heartbreaking words from 9-year-old Hauwa, spoken during a recent visit to an elementary school in Kano, continue to echo powerfully in my mind. Her bright eyes, her energy, and her unwavering dream contrast starkly with the limitations her environment imposes. Hauwa is not just one child. She is a symbol of millions of African children—full of potential but forced to navigate systemic barriers that crush their dreams before they can take root.

The Education Crisis in Nigeria: More Than Just Numbers

Kano, a city celebrated for its rich heritage and resilience, also represents a stark reality: entrenched poverty, gender inequality, and inadequate public investment are strangling the futures of many young Nigerians. Hauwa’s situation is tragically familiar. Across Africa, UNESCO estimates that 98 million children are out of school, and Nigeria alone accounts for nearly 20 million of them, the highest number in the world. The majority are girls.

But this is more than an education problem—it is a social and economic emergency. Girls like Hauwa are often pushed out of school due to early marriage, patriarchal customs, insecurity, or poverty. Once out, they are more likely to experience malnutrition, gender-based violence, child labour, and poor health outcomes.

According to UNICEF, one in eight children in Nigeria dies before their fifth birthday from preventable causes, and 43% of under-five children are malnourished. These statistics are more than data points—they are lives cut short and futures denied.

A Glimmer of Progress Amid Systemic Barriers

It’s important to acknowledge that Nigeria has taken steps in the right direction. Investments in school feeding programmes, community learning centres, and accelerated education in conflict-affected regions have expanded access to learning. There is also increasing national attention to girl-child education.

Development agencies and nonprofits like Save the Children have been instrumental in delivering services, supporting displaced communities, and influencing policy change. But despite these efforts, the pace of progress remains too slow and too fragmented to tackle deep-rooted structural challenges.

Issues such as poor school infrastructure, teacher shortages, entrenched cultural norms, and weak child protection systems continue to hold back transformative change. These problems are not just humanitarian concerns—they are moral and economic imperatives that require stronger collective responses.

Why Nigerian Businesses Must Step Up

As Vice Chair of the Save the Children UK Africa Advisory Board, I have seen the power of African businesses investing in social good. The private sector has an unmatched capacity to innovate, scale, and influence. With nearly half of Nigeria’s population projected to be under the age of 15 by 2030, what happens now will shape our national destiny.

Corporates and philanthropists must not see child-focused investments as charity—they are strategic investments in the workforce, consumers, and citizens of tomorrow. The business community must become co-architects of sustainable change by financing education access, supporting child protection initiatives, and backing health campaigns. They must also demand accountability from governments and promote policies that enable children to thrive.

Save the Children: From Crisis Response to Future Building

At Save the Children, our mission goes beyond delivering aid in emergencies. We focus on long-term, community-driven solutions that secure every child’s right to survive, learn, and be protected. From providing vaccines and therapeutic food to building schools and safe spaces for displaced children, our interventions are helping shape a generation that can lead Africa’s future.

Our 2030 global ambition is clear:

• No child should die from preventable causes before their fifth birthday

• Every child must access quality basic education

• Violence against children must be eradicated

This is not idealism—it is a roadmap for justice. It is a blueprint for closing the inequality gap, fostering economic growth, and ensuring peace and resilience in the continent’s most fragile communities.

The Call for Inclusive, Ground-Up Change

One of the most powerful lessons from my visit to Kano is this: real change starts from the ground up. It doesn’t happen in boardrooms alone. It happens in crowded classrooms, in health clinics, and in communities where determined mothers, teachers, and children fight every day to keep hope alive.

My role on the Advisory Board is not only to provide strategy and resources—it’s to ensure the authentic voices of parents, teachers, and children like Hauwa guide our decisions. These voices remind us what’s at stake: lives, futures, and a better Nigeria for all.

The Multiple Crises Threatening African Children

Africa’s children, particularly in Nigeria, are living through a perfect storm of crises:

• Armed conflicts and displacement

• Climate change and food insecurity

• Inadequate healthcare systems

• Digital exclusion and gender inequality

Children need more than temporary relief. They need systems and allies. Governments, civil society, religious leaders, traditional institutions, and private sector actors must come together to build resilient structures that protect and empower children.

Amplifying Voices, Driving Action

It is time to break the silence around child marriage, educational exclusion, malnutrition, and healthcare inequality. We need stronger public awareness campaigns, policy shifts, and community-level mobilisations. We must push for:

• Enforcing the Child Rights Act in all 36 states

• Scaling up gender-sensitive education

• Increasing budgetary allocation to health and education

• Empowering local communities with tools and information

Girls like Hauwa should not be told their dreams are impossible. They should be encouraged, mentored, supported, and celebrated. Every time a child declares a dream, the world must listen—and act.

Beyond Aid: Toward Sustainable Empowerment

Aid can respond to urgent needs, but lasting change requires long-term commitments—from government budgets to private investment and grassroots participation. We must move from temporary solutions to systemic reform.

We must also ensure children’s participation in decisions affecting them. Listening to young people’s voices, amplifying their stories, and including them in solution-building is not only ethical—it is effective.

Conclusion: Hauwa’s Dream Is Nigeria’s Future

When Hauwa says, “I want to be a doctor,” she is offering a vision of Nigeria at its best—caring, skilled, ambitious. We cannot afford to dismiss such dreams. Every child deserves a chance to reach their full potential, regardless of their gender, background, or birthplace.

Let us be the generation that turns promises into progress, that dismantles the barriers holding our children back, and that ensures no dream is too big, no child too small, and no future too distant.

Because a world that listens to Hauwa—and acts—is a world truly committed to justice, equality, and lasting development.