Former Minister of Education, Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili, has called on African governments to prioritise girls’ education, enforce the minimum legal age of marriage and strengthen measures to end child marriage across the continent.
Ezekwesili, founder of Human Capital Africa (HCA), said foundational literacy and numeracy were essential to protecting girls from early marriage, warning that millions of girls remained vulnerable because they lacked access to quality education.
In a statement marking the International Day of the Girl Child on Sunday, she said, “A girl who learns is a girl who is not a bride.”
She said governments must ensure that every girl acquires basic reading skills before the age of 10 and can progress to secondary school without financial barriers.
According to her, UNICEF’s 2026 estimates show that about one in five girls worldwide is married before the age of 18, representing roughly 650 million women and girls alive today who were married as children.
More than 12 million girls are married each year, equivalent to about one every three seconds, while sub-Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence of child marriage globally, at 31 per cent.
In Nigeria, Ezekwesili said, 23.6 million women and girls were married before the age of 18, the highest number in West and Central Africa.
She identified Jigawa State as an area of particular concern, noting that 78 per cent of women aged 20 to 49 were first married before 18, while 63 per cent of women left school to marry.
Ezekwesili warned that child marriage also carries significant economic consequences, citing a report by Columbia University that includes an analysis by the Center for Global Development.
The analysis estimates that child marriage costs the global economy up to $175 billion annually through lost productivity and increased health risks, with cumulative losses potentially reaching almost $2.5 trillion by 2040.
“Child marriage is not a side issue in development. It drains a nation’s human capital directly,” she said.
However, Ezekwesili noted that progress was possible, with an estimated 68 million child marriages averted over the past 25 years through girls’ education, legal reforms and social protection.
She cited evidence showing that each additional year of secondary education reduces a girl’s likelihood of marrying before 18 by five percentage points or more.
In Niger, she said, the removal of direct middle-school costs for rural girls was associated with a 19 percentage-point reduction in the probability of marriage for each additional year of secondary education.
“If every African girl completed secondary education, child marriage could be almost eliminated,” she said.
Ezekwesili, who also serves as a civil society representative on the Steering Committee of the African Union’s Decade of Accelerated Action for the Transformation of Education and Skills Development in Africa (2025–2034), said efforts to end child marriage must begin with foundational learning.
She noted that 89 per cent of children in sub-Saharan Africa experience learning poverty, meaning they cannot read and understand a simple text by the age of 10.
According to her, girls who struggle to acquire basic literacy are more likely to fall behind in school, drop out and become vulnerable to early marriage.
“That is why we say schooling is not learning. Foundational literacy and numeracy are the first and cheapest protection a girl has,” she said.
She called on African governments to make foundational learning a child-protection priority, remove school fees and other costs that prevent girls from entering secondary school, and enforce 18 as the minimum age of marriage in every state and community.
She also urged governments to increase domestic funding for girls’ education as foreign aid declines, while working with traditional and religious leaders to end child marriage.
Ezekwesili called for governments to track and publish data on girls’ learning outcomes, transition to secondary school and child marriage rates as part of national accountability systems.
She said the African Union’s education decade offered an opportunity to make girls’ learning and school retention central to education reforms across the continent.
“The Columbia report sets a realistic target: cutting child marriage prevalence from one in five to one in seven within five years,” she said.
“Africa can lead the way to that target, but only if we treat every girl’s classroom as the place where her childhood is protected.”
She added: “Any girl-child should be a student, not a bride. She should learn, then lead.”
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