Nigeria’s children are facing multiple threats as they are being failed by the system. They are left unvaccinated, malnourished, and without access to education, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and vulnerability that threatens their very future.
When President Bola Tinubu addressed them on Tuesday to mark this year’s Children’s Day, he spoke glowingly about his administration’s plans for the future leaders, saying this year’s theme, “Stand Up, Speak Up: Building a Bullying-Free Generation,” “could not have been more timely as it speaks directly to the culture we are building.”
Mr Tinubu said his administration is building “a culture where every child feels safe, respected, and heard, both in physical spaces and digital communities. Just to be clear, violence, bullying, and neglect have no place in Nigeria of today.”
The president said, “Globally, more than 1 in 3 children experience bullying regularly. In Nigeria, studies estimate that up to 65 per cent of school-age children have experienced some form of physical, psychological, or social aggression. This is unacceptable. A child who learns in fear cannot learn well. A child who grows in fear cannot grow right.”
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But a day after the President’s speech, millions of candidates sitting the ongoing Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) were seen holding torches to illuminate their halls as the examination dragged on very late in the night.
The latest experience by these students came on the heels of a similar unfortunate situation experienced during the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) when wrong results were released to innocent candidates.
One of the consequences of such a fatal error was the death of a 19-year-old, Timilehin Opesusi, who reportedly committed suicide earlier in May due to a poor UTME score she was said to have received.
Therefore, how much more can a generation be bullied into silence if not from the physical, psychological, and economic torture these younger Nigerians are subjected to? So, they are not only learning in fear, but they are also growing in pain.
Grim statistics
According to a 2024 Situation Analysis of Children and Adolescents in Nigeria (SitAn) jointly released by the Federal Government and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), millions of children battle widespread deprivation in critical areas such as health, education, nutrition, child protection, water, climate crisis, and sanitation.
An updated SitAn was produced by the federal government with technical support from UNICEF in 2024 to help understand and respond to the challenges facing children and adolescents. The analysis is intended to support government efforts to shape policies and shift investment patterns to benefit all Nigerian children.
The previous SitAn was published in 2022, primarily based on household survey data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2016–2017 and the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2018.
Nigeria tops global list of unvaccinated children
According to the SitAn, Nigeria is home to the highest number of unvaccinated children in the world, as 2.1 million under the age of five classified as ‘zero dose’ have never received a single routine vaccine.
This alarming figure signals a public health crisis with life and death implications for the nation’s youngest citizens.
The report states that zero-dose children have never received a vaccination to prevent childhood diseases like measles, polio, pneumonia, and diphtheria, among others, stating that 31 per cent of one-year-olds have never received any vaccination.
It further highlighted that the youngest (0–3 years) and poorest children, those with less-educated mothers, and those living in the northern part of Nigeria are most at risk of illness or death due to common preventable and treatable diseases.
“Children under three years of age are at greatest risk of diarrhoea and those with mothers lacking education are three times more likely to be affected just as children with uneducated mothers are also twice as likely to contract malaria, as they may lack information and resources on how to diagnose, prevent and treat the disease,” the report stated.
UNICEF Health Officer, Bashir Elegbede, during a one-day media dialogue to commemorate the 2025 World Immunisation Day in Damaturu, Yobe State, in April, said the global goal is to reduce the number of zero-dose children by 25 per cent by 2025, and by 50 per cent by 2030.
According to him, children not immunised have a relatively high risk of being infected and succumbing to vaccine-preventable diseases like polio, measles, meningitis, yellow fever, and viral hepatitis, among others.
“Reducing the number of zero-dose children is crucial for improving public health outcomes in Nigeria. These children are mostly found in locations affected by conflict, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, geographic hard-to-reach, pastoral, urban outskirt, and slums, including areas with existing health systems challenges,” Mr Elegbede said.
Though Nigeria has recorded some positive achievements, including the 2020 declaration of Nigeria as a polio-free country (eradication of the wild polio virus), declining AIDS-related mortality, and introduction of the human papillomavirus vaccine, among others.
Deeper crisis beyond vaccines
The vaccination crisis sits within a larger storm of child vulnerability. The impacts of climate change, according to the report, disproportionately affect children as flooding leads to school closures and reduced access to food, social services, safe water, and sanitation.
About 78 per cent of total air-pollution-related pneumonia deaths in 2019 occurred among children under five years of age, which was the highest proportion globally.
While armed groups abducted 859 school children in 2023 alone, more than 1,680 have been kidnapped since 2014.
In 2023 and 2024, record-breaking heat along with floods and droughts pushed people from their homes, aggravating the already high levels of food insecurity and hunger, while armed conflict, especially in the north and northeast, has continued to negatively affect children and adolescents.
Malnutrition is another silent killer, as 40 per cent of children under five are stunted, and 8 per cent are wasted due to food insecurity, poor diets, and unsafe water. Alarmingly, 70 per cent of households consume unsafe drinking water, causing diarrhoeal diseases, another preventable cause of death.
The 2024 SitAn identified household poverty, unavailability of food, poor feeding practices, and the absence of a diverse and nutritious diet as underlying causes of malnutrition, highlighting that children left untreated for severe malnutrition face a higher risk of death.
It recommended scaling up of high-impact maternal health and nutrition interventions to reduce maternal and newborn deaths; counselling families and others caring for children about optimal childcare practices.
It also called for strengthening of national capacity to implement the National Strategic Plan of Action on Nutrition to facilitate a multisectoral approach to improving child health and nutrition.
On the climate change crisis, the SitAn called for increased outreach and collaboration with regional and international agencies working on climate change; conduct child-focused climate vulnerability and capacity assessments to identify specific risks and hazards, as well as ensure sufficient budget for child-focused climate resilience projects.
Education emergency
Nigeria’s education system is in urgent need of repair, with more than 18 million children out of school and learning outcomes far below global standards.
According to the 2024 SitAn, 10.2 million children of primary school age and 8.1 million children of secondary school age are out of school, while only 38 per cent of three and four-year-olds benefit from preschool education, with stark disparities between geographic location and wealth quintile.
Household income continues to play a major role in determining educational success as around 3.9 million children do not complete primary school and another 4.2 million fail to complete junior secondary school each year, while 97 per cent of primary school children from the highest wealth quintile finish school, compared with only 34 per cent from the poorest quintile.
The analysis further shows that 90 per cent of children from wealthy households graduate from senior secondary school, compared with fewer than 16 per cent of children from low-income households.
Among children aged 7–14 years, only 27 per cent can read and understand a simple sentence, and just 25 per cent can solve a basic math problem. This learning poverty is especially stark in the north-west zone, where only 9.5 per cent of children demonstrate reading comprehension, compared to 87 per cent in Lagos State.
In the south-east, about 56 per cent of children can read with understanding, still far from ideal, but significantly better than the northern zones.
To address the extremely low teacher–student ratios, nearly 200,000 trained teachers are needed, according to the analysis, as northern states have the fewest number of teachers per student and the lowest school completion rates.
Despite policy commitments under the Renewed Hope Agenda, including an ambitious goal to return 15 million out-of-school children to classrooms by 2027, the report reveals that access to quality and inclusive education remains unequal and underfunded.
The report recommended increased federal and state funding for education for better access to education and to improve quality; carry out school mapping to support the upgrading of school infrastructure; advocate for increased investment in and coverage of early childhood development and education, and ensure that existing and new teachers are trained in child-centred, inclusive and gender-responsive education.
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It also stressed the need for review of school curricula to ensure alignment with current societal needs and job market demands, and the incorporation of digital technology, as well as ensuring engagement of local communities and traditional leaders to shift norms and practices that prevent girls from attending and continuing school education.
Child poverty
Despite efforts by the government to reduce poverty among society’s most vulnerable members through social protection programmes such as cash transfers and employment-generating initiatives, among others; many people, especially children, are still being left behind.
Data shows that one in every two Nigerian children lives in income poverty, noting that even where health services exist, many families cannot afford transportation, pay out-of-pocket for care, or lack basic knowledge about preventive health.
It further shows that 67.5 per cent of children of 105 million aged 0–17 years in Nigeria experience multiple forms of poverty in health, education, and living standards.
This figure drops to 58.7 per cent for the population over 18 years according to SitAn, with stark variations seen by region and location. In rural areas, nearly 90 per cent of children experience multidimensional poverty.
While more than 50 per cent of all children under 5 years old live in multidimensional poverty in each state, the figure surpasses 95 per cent in four states, including Bayelsa, Sokoto, Gombe, and Kebbi. Also, 47 per cent of children live in households with an income below the national monetary poverty line.
In spite of advances in several areas of child well-being, poverty and food insecurity have risen sharply in recent years. For example, in 2024, Nigeria had the world’s highest number of people (31.8 million) unable to access sufficient food.
WASH services still lacking
People in one in every five Nigerian households practise open defecation, posing a risk to children of diarrhoeal-related diseases that can lead to malnutrition and are common causes of child mortality. Children under three years of age, according to the SitAn, are at greatest risk of diarrhoea.
Similarly, 70 per cent of households were consuming contaminated water due to a lack of access to safely managed water sources, while schools and health facilities also have only rudimentary water and sanitation services, contributing to the exclusion of girls and children with disabilities.
The SitAn stressed the need to invest in increasing access to clean water, safe sanitation, and hygiene, adding that eradication of open defecation should be a priority as a low-cost solution.
Protection failure
According to the report, violence against children appears to be on the rise, irrespective of adult education level or socioeconomic background.
It noted that 90 per cent of children under five years experienced psychological aggression and/or physical punishment, while 80 per cent of 5 to 14-year-olds endured physical punishment.
Alarmingly, less than five of every 100 children who reported violence received support due to widespread understaffing and underfunding of social service agencies.
The SitAn noted that girls in particular need protection from widespread gender-based violence, especially in conflict zones and camps for the displaced. It stressed the need to strengthen mechanisms for ending all violence, exploitation, and abuse of boys, girls, and women.
“Strengthen enforcement of existing laws and address social norms and customs that support violence against children in the home, school, and elsewhere, including online,” it stated.
Broken promises, shrinking budgets
While Nigeria has made progress in certain areas, such as birth registration, improved access to prenatal care, and the introduction of new vaccines like the HPV vaccine, the gains are undercut by declining public investment.
The share of the national budget allocated to health, education, and social protection dropped to 15.7 per cent in 2024, down from 22 per cent in 2021, which is far below global benchmarks and Nigeria’s own promises.
Meanwhile, the country is reeling from the compounding effects of climate change, rising poverty, food shortages, and insecurity.
The most pressing need in terms of improving the situation of children and adolescents in Nigeria, according to the SitAn, is an increased allocation of public budgets to critical child-relevant services.
It stressed that allocated funds should be used to reduce poverty and inequalities and to ensure the fulfillment of all children’s rights to safe, quality schools and health facilities. Additionally, the government at all levels and different sectoral agencies should collaborate to identify the most serious capacity gaps and strengthen implementation capacity, particularly for child-focused social services.
Children’s Day is a commemorative date celebrated annually in honour of children. The International Children’s Day was first proclaimed in 1925 in Geneva during the World Conference on Child Welfare.