By Sodiq Alabi
In September 1999, the newly inaugurated democratic president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo headed to Sokoto state to launch the Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme.
The UBE was a follow-on to the Universal Primary Education (UPE) programme then General Obasanjo introduced in September 1976 as military head of state. In 1999, President Obasanjo envisioned UBE as a bold step to ignite a national consciousness for education and provide free education for every child from primary through junior secondary.
The objectives of the programme were lofty: drastically reduce school dropouts and ensure students acquired essential literacy, numeracy, and life skills necessary for lifelong learning. An Act was subsequently enacted in 2004 to give the programme the force of law.
Since the programme was launched, millions have climbed the educational ladder, yet the country remains far from achieving universal education or functional literacy.
Data from the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) for 1999 and 2024 show that while Nigeria has made some progress since ‘99, the pace of change is dangerously slow for a nation aspiring to global competitiveness.
Progress worth noting
In 1999, among men, 24.7% had no education, 26.5% stopped at primary school, 36.8% stopped at secondary, and 12% went beyond secondary. For women, the picture was worse: 40.5% had never attended school, 22.8% ended at primary level, 30.5% stopped at secondary, and only 6.2% went beyond secondary.
By 2025, the share of men with no education fell to 22.1%, and women to 34.3%. More Nigerians now go beyond primary education, as secondary schooling strengthened to 46.4% of men and 40.9% of women.
Higher education has also expanded with 20.5% of men and 13.7% of women surveyed reporting having some form of higher education which is double the rate in 1999.
Figure 1: Educational attainment for Nigerians 1999 vs 2024 (NDHS).
But the progress has obvious limits
The stubbornly high share of Nigerians with no formal education is a major failure of not only the UBE but all other education efforts by both states and federal government. After 26 years since UBE was introduced, 28.2% of adults are still without education, a sluggish decline from the 32.6% recorded in 1999.
Things look even worse when you look at literacy rates across the country.
NDHS 2024 data show that 35% of adults in Nigeria cannot read at all. When semi-literacy (those who can only read part of a sentence) is included, around 56% of our prime working-age population lacks functional literacy. More than half!
No doubt, this is a crippling constraint on productivity and innovation which also impacts public health, sustained economic growth, and agricultural productivity, among other lofty ambitions.
Nigeria is falling behind peers and the world
To understand how far Nigeria lags, it helps to benchmark against other developing nations. Around the turn of the millennium, Zambia’s adult illiteracy rate was about 40 per cent, similar to Nigeria’s. Today, Zambia has cut its rate to roughly 14 per cent, leading Nigeria behind. Kenya halved its illiteracy rate in the same period, from 35 per cent to 17 per cent.
Countries that have done better treated literacy as a non-negotiable foundation for national development. This required heavy investment in teacher training, school infrastructure and literacy campaigns. Nigeria’s failure to replicate this urgency will continue to weigh heavily on its ambition to become an economic powerhouse.
Have we reached the limits of decentralisation?
The UBE Act of 2004 entrenched a decentralised education model that limits federal intervention to funding and setting standards. States and local governments have primary responsibility for basic education. In theory, this promotes local accountability; in practice, it has entrenched disparities in attainment across states.
A look at the 2024 NDHS shows a country divided by literacy. Southern states now have rates comparable to middle-income countries, while the North-East and North-West record some of the lowest literacy levels in the world. Among men, literacy ranges from 92.6 per cent in the South-West to just 60 per cent in the North-West and North-East. For women, the gap is even wider: 84.9 per cent in the South-West compared with 38.3 per cent in the North-East.
This fragmented governance model has made it difficult to mount the kind of large-scale, coordinated literacy campaigns that transformed education systems in Asia. Nigeria’s approach has been piecemeal, often undermined by political instability, corruption and competing fiscal priorities. In some states, political leadership appears indifferent. Without stronger federal intervention and enforceable minimum benchmarks, regional gaps will persist and so will illiteracy.
NDHS literacy rate (2024)
| Zone | Men | Women |
| Northeast | 59.6% | 38.3% |
| Northwest | 60.1% | 40.9% |
| Northcentral | 74.2% | 52.8% |
| Southeast | 85.4% | 80.5% |
| Southsouth | 88.0% | 84.4% |
| Southwest | 92.6% | 84.9% |
The fragmented governance model has made it difficult to mount large-scale, coordinated literacy campaigns that have transformed education systems elsewhere. A recent example is India’s NIPUN Bharat Mission, launched in 2021 to improve foundational learning. Within its first few years, the programme has shown measurable impact across Indian states. In Uttar Pradesh, a state with more than 240 million people (larger than Nigeria’s entire population) the share of Grade 3 children who can read a Grade 2-level text rose from 24 per cent in 2022 to 34 per cent in 2024, according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER). That’s 41% improvement in just two years.
Nigeria’s approach, by contrast, has been piecemeal, often undermined by political instability, corruption and competing fiscal priorities. In some states, political leadership appears totally indifferent. Without stronger federal intervention and enforceable minimum benchmarks, regional gaps will persist and so will illiteracy, and the whole country will pay for the failure of a few states.
It is commendable that Nigeria has moved millions beyond primary education, but this is not enough. Functional literacy must become a national priority backed by robust federal action and state-level accountability. Without this, Nigeria risks remaining locked in a cycle of underperformance, unable to match the educational strides of its peers such as Kenya, Zambia, and India. We need to get serious about this.
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