Funding of education is influenced by both
internal and external players; the internal players
include teachers union, government, and bureaucrats,
external players such as international aid, agencies and
development bodies, Non-governmental organizations.
They all have some measure of influence on educational
reforms and implementation of educational policy. The
paper argues that education is mostly politicized in
Africa, using Nigeria as a reference point and also
funding is one of the banes of the development of the
sector. Analysis of educational budget from 1999 to 2019
compared with all the previous allocations, the 2019
education budget is higher than others in sum but lower
in percentages to the entire estimates. The report has
shown that the average of the total allocation to
education is just 8.96% And analyzing government
spending since 1999 to date in education have shown that
it is far below the required 26 % benchmark
recommended by United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in funding the
education sector. The paper concludes that there is a
need for political leaders to show more commitment to
educational development in Nigeria especially through
improved funding and suggest that education funding in
Nigeria should be extended to other ministries,
department, agencies and well meaning individuals in
other to support the educational sector
Keywords : Education, Politics, Financing, Budget, Policy.