Lagos: President George Weah has appealed to his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari for 6 000 teachers to help revive an education sector knocked down by years of economic collapse.
Weah said Liberia faced pressing socio-economic challenges before reaching out to Buhari for help to “jump-start our economy” to alleviate the plight of his long suffering countrymen.
Education, mining, agriculture, health and other sectors are in urgent need of revival, Weah said during his State visit to Nigeria.
“Your sustained technical assistance for capacity building in these sectors is most welcome.
“More specifically, under the Bilateral Teacher Exchange programme, we are seeking 6,000 plus teachers to make up for the shortage of good teachers in our educational system,” Weah told journalists after meeting Buhari at State House.
Weah was sworn in on January, taking over from Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president who steps down after 12 years in power.
It was the first time since 1944 that Liberia wass having a peaceful democratic transfer of power.
Weah played for a string of top-flight European teams in the 1990s and was crowned the world’s best player by FIFA and won the coveted Ballon d’Or prize, the only African to have achieved this.
Weah was contesting as a presidential candidate for the third consecutive time since he first ran in 2005.
