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Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has said his decision to site his American University of Nigeria (AUN) in Yola, Adamawa State was to invest in his people, create opportunities, and bring world-class education closer to a region that had long needed greater access and development.
He added that he could have established the institution in Lagos and Abuja if he was profit driven.
Atiku made this known on Friday after a critic on X challenged him to disclose his contribute to ending the out-of-school menace in Northern Nigeria.
Sharing a photo of some Almajiri children, the X user asked, “Have you ever addressed this, sir? You were VP for 8 years, these innocent children are in your region and you couldn’t do anything to stop this calamity.”
Responding, Atiku said, “The sight of children begging on our streets should trouble every Nigerian.”
He explained that he established AUN as “a practical investment in education and the development of the North.”
“If profit had been my primary motivation, I could easily have located the university in Abuja or Lagos, where the commercial advantages would have been greater.
“I chose Yola because I wanted to invest in my people, create opportunities, and bring world-class education closer to a region that had long needed greater access and development,” he said.
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The former VP added that AUN is no longer his personal property.
“As I have publicly stated before, this university is not my personal property or that of my family. I have already signed a deed of gift transferring it to the community. AUN belongs to the community it was established to serve,” the presidential candidate of African Democratic Congress (ADC) stated.
Atiku also highlighted AUN’s interventions for vulnerable children in the region.
He said beyond classrooms, the university created the Feed and Read programme, which provides vulnerable Almajiri children with daily meals while teaching them literacy and numeracy.
Through its Technology-Enhanced Learning for All initiative, he added, AUN also helped “more than 20,000 internally displaced children learn to read through educational radio programmes.”
He further disclosed that following the Chibok tragedy in 2014, seven years after he left office, AUN awarded scholarships to young women who had escaped Boko Haram, “giving them an opportunity to rebuild their lives through education.”
“My conviction remains simple: every child belongs in a classroom, not on the street with a begging bowl. Whether in government or outside it, I have always sought to turn that conviction into practical action,” Atiku stressed.
