Bauchi Gov Blames SUBEB, Local Education Secretaries for Failed Education System 

Segun Awofadeji in Bauchi 

Governor Bala Mohammed has lambasted the Management of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and the Local Government Education Authority (LGEA) Secretaries for sabotaging his efforts at developing the state’s education sector.

A visibly angry governor said this at the opening of a meeting of education stakeholders, including SUBEB management, ministry of education, LGEA secretaries and local government area caretaker chairpeople, held at the Banquet Hall of the Government House, Bauchi.

The governor regretted the high number of out-of-school children in the state coupled with the decline in the standard of education, saying that his administration has failed the people of the state regarding educational development. 

“I was thinking loudly when I discussed with a few commissioners that of education, local government affairs and the chief of staff that we need to focus on education,” said the Bauchi governor. “My attention was drawn to some areas where completely SUBEB is not doing anything after spending so many years there and bragging that we have renovated over 5,000 classrooms.” 

Mohammed added, “The quality of supervision by SUBEB is appalling, so you have the opportunity to change. I have done my best but, certainly there is no supervision, no quality control, it has been business as usual. I am highly disappointed with all managers in the sector, from my humble self, the SSG that is supervising SUBEB, the Ministry of education and the LGAs. We have not done well in that sector. You are not doing anything, it is just eye service and making money, that is all and I will not allow this to continue, no, it must not continue. 

The governor explained that there was “a time I gave you a marching order that all these schools should be enumerated and they were done. We did it through the people who are living in Bauchi. We even brought local contractors from the state so that they can benefit from the process but things are not going on well.” 

Mohammed stated, “And, the World Bank and UNICEF, as well as other development partners, are assisting us to develop the sector, but no positive results. We are regularly paying our counterpart grants. Just in 2022, we spent N3 billion but I can’t see what we have done with such amount, we spent N5 billion and N9 billion yet the schools are left like that. Definitely, something is wrong with the system,” he said.

The governor alleged that “somebody” or “some people are sabotaging us.”

“Today is not a tea party. I am not happy, before we declare state of emergency on education, we have to declare a state of emergency on ourselves. We are not doing well. We are just pretending, all of us, stakeholders,” stated the Bauchi governor. “We know the numbers; ome places where you are supposed to have large number of classes, you don’t have it. We must just try to strike a balance. Even some of the schools we renovated or built, are not good enough.”