What’s going on?
On July 20, 2026, an X user shared a letter announcing the closure of a private school in Lagos State, and this quickly went viral.
In the letter, the 30-year-old school in the state’s Ojodu area announced it was closing permanently due to the high cost of running a school amid the country’s economic hardship.
We opened this letter hoping to see school fees but we got this letter instead.
— Misola in the Cloud☁️ (@Iam_Misola) July 25, 2026
This is so painful!!! A school that has been operating for over 30 years ooo! pic.twitter.com/NfPyqr2O1Z
Nigerians have since taken to the post to express their frustrations with the hardship in the country.
This tragedy, like many things that happen in Nigeria, is not the only instance of the economy’s negative impact on Nigerians; it’s the one we’ve all heard about.
It is a direct result of Tinubu’s genius reforms, and educators saw it coming from miles away.
Back in 2024, Ajibade Bakare, proprietor of Ajibay Academy in Ayobo, Lagos, told the Independent that the economic meltdown had multiplied his running costs by 100%. He warned that private schools would keep “closing shop” unless the government stepped in. He said:
“We are forcing ourselves to keep our heads above the water because we are more or less running charitable organisations in order not to send home our students. We are running at a loss…”
Two years later, the closure of the Ojodu school proved him right.
It’s all about the Naira
The recent school closure isn’t happening in a vacuum; it’s another result of Tinubu’s “temporary pain” reforms.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s inflation rate rose to 15.93% in May 2026, up from 15.69% in April. Food, transport, and restaurant costs were listed as the biggest drivers.
Those happen to be among the everyday costs of running a private school: keeping the lights on, getting people to and from school, and feeding students where boarding houses exist.
A May 2026 Vanguard report found that economic hardship was a top reason for low student turnout in Lagos schools at the start of the third academic term. Parents were pulling their children out of school or delaying their resumption, simply because they couldn’t afford to send them back.
While the government brags about the naira’s stabilisation on paper, school fees and the cost of school operations continue to climb. This is why a school that has survived three decades in Nigeria couldn’t survive this one.
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Bandits 1- Government 0
While economic hardship shuts schools from the inside, insecurity is shutting them from the outside.
In May 2026, gunmen stormed a school in Oyo State and abducted 39 pupils and seven teachers in a single raid.
Just six months earlier, on November 18, 2025, gunmen attacked a government school in Kebbi State, killing a vice principal and abducting 25 schoolgirls.
Three days later, on November 21, 303 students and 12 teachers were taken from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Niger State.
These are clearly not one-off attacks, and they aren’t slowing down either. If your child is about to start school, the choice isn’t simply public or private anymore. It’s which school can keep them safe?
Between Tinubu’s and a hard place
Ordinarily, you’d expect that parents continue their children’s education in public schools, but those are nothing to write home about. To be fair, they haven’t been for a while now, but Mr Master Strategist hasn’t done anything to make public education a real alternative.
In Nigeria’s 2026 budget, education was allocated just ₦3.52 trillion, representing a measly 6.1% of the total spend of ₦58.18 trillion.
That’s the same share as the previous year, despite the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) recommending that 15 to 20% of national budgets go to education. The education ministry’s own proposal was even crazier at ₦2.4 trillion.
That underfunding contributes to Nigeria currently having over 18.3 million out-of-school children, the highest number in the world, and why the public schools that exist are overcrowded and understaffed. So families priced out of private education don’t land softly; they land in a system that Tinubu has spent three budget cycles failing to properly fund.
So what now?
Nigerians shouldn’t have to choose between bandits and bankruptcy when it comes to their children’s education. The Tinubu administration needs to raise the federal education budget to at least meet the UNESCO benchmark.
Nigeria’s classrooms are emptying out from both ends, and silence isn’t going to refill them.
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