By Johnbosco Agbakwuru
ABUJA — The First Lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, on Monday told a World Bank team that investing in early childhood development is critical not only to improve growth opportunities for children but also to shape and sharpen their focus.
Senator Tinubu, in an engagement with the World Bank delegation at the State House, Abuja, said the federal government has been carrying out its statutory duties and embracing initiatives that can advance the nation and its citizens.
In a statement by her media aide, Busola Kukoyi, the First Lady said, “The population size of Nigeria alone is our advantage because Nigeria is a great nation.”
She added, “The ministries have also been doing their best for the benefit of our nation, including work on the environment and sanitation, because environmental cleanliness is very important. I worked with the Minister of Environment to an extent, and that was why we started the Green Challenge.”
” You talked about a multisectoral approach; that is what we have been doing. I will say that Mr President has assembled a wonderful team — they understand the tasks,” she said.
“When it comes to tuberculosis, we carried out sensitisation and promoted the campaign. And now, talking about our children — they are the joy of our nation and we must do a lot for them.”
The First Lady assured her guests that her office would continue to work with the wives of state governors to drive critical interventions for children.
“We are looking forward to school feeding. I can assure you that before we finish our tenure it will have been properly established, because even Mr President is very passionate about this, even when he was Governor of Lagos State.”
Dr. Mathew Verghis, the World Bank Country Director, called for expanded partnerships with Nigerian leaders to support early childhood development (ECD).
He said the World Bank champions ECD as Nigeria’s most critical long-term investment, with a framework that focuses on several key areas of joint project implementation over five to six years.
Dr. Verghis explained that the ECD strategy encompasses boosting nutrition and healthy living for Nigerian children.
He highlighted that investments from pregnancy to age five yield strong annual returns by enhancing cognitive skills, lowering health costs, and breaking cycles of multidimensional poverty.
“Every five or six years, we reframe our programmes in Nigeria. Nigeria is unsurprisingly one of the World Bank’s largest partners and our office here is one of the largest in the world,” he said.
“In the framework, investing in people is an important focus of the World Bank. We are partners in education and nutrition programmes; we also have programmes on skills. We recognise the importance of investing in people.”
He said that for Nigeria to benefit from ECD, the First Lady can help use her platform to fast-track a multisectoral approach so the programmes can succeed nationwide.
In submissions across key portfolios including growth and learning outcomes, education and sanitation, the World Bank applauded the alignment between the First Lady’s interventions — particularly the ongoing campaign against child malnutrition — and the bank’s programme.
The Country Director further said that Nigeria is paramount to the World Bank as one of the nations that can help the bank meet its targets.
“Nigeria is a very important partner for the World Bank and her success is crucial for the World Bank to achieve its targets,” he said. “We have targets for healthcare delivery, broadband access and energy access. If Nigeria does not succeed, the World Bank will not succeed.”
“This definition of ECD is well supported in the global literature and economic research, which shows that investing in young children is among the best public-sector investments because it yields high returns,” he added.
“One downside is that the returns often come much later; not everyone is willing to adopt that perspective. It requires leadership, because the returns do not appear quickly.”
With Nigeria as one of its largest partners, the bank’s intention under its country partnership framework is to drive the implementation phase of its programme with a whole-of-government approach, for which the leadership and commitment of the First Lady are critical.
The five-man delegation, led by the World Bank Country Director in Nigeria, Matthew Verghis, visited the First Lady’s office to brief her on the bank’s early-years programme in Nigeria for the next five years, which is currently in its technical and analytical phase.
