Despite Nigeria’s 20m Out-of-School Children Crisis, States Fail to Access N68bn UBEC Fund

*Falana may approach the courts to compel action by sub-nationals

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja and Wale Igbintade in Lagos

Despite Nigeria’s growing crisis in the education sector, leading to the challenge of over 20 million out-of-school children nationwide, several Nigerian states have failed to access the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) matching grant.
To compel the states to take appropriate steps to access the funds, renowned human rights activist, Mr Femi Falana (SAN) yesterday in a statement vowed to approach the courts to get an order of mandamus to ensure the states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) take action.

Falana stated that in early 2023, the United Nations Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF ) estimated the total number of out-of-school children in Nigeria to be 20.2 million.
Quoting from the report, the renowned lawyer disclosed that one in three children in Nigeria is out of school, totalling 10.2 million at the primary level, and 8.1 million at the junior secondary school level.

UNICEF, Falana said, added that one in every five out-of-school children in the world is in Nigeria, with over 60 per cent of the illiterate in the North and confirmed that Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children globally.
“Disturbed by the figure of out-of-school children, we requested the UBEC to furnish us with information on access to UBEC fund by the 36 state governments and the FCT.

“ In its prompt reply to our letter, the UBEC disclosed that the total un-accessed matching grant from all states of the federation and the FCT stood at N68, 737, 873, 073. 52 as of  December 11, 2023,” Falana said in a statement.
In view of the fact that state governments had failed to comply with section 3 of the Education Reforms Act, which mandates them to contribute half or 50 per cent of the total cost of projects to be executed in the state as their own commitment in the execution of the projects, Falana stressed that he was compelled to call on the UBEC to disburse the fund directly.

“This call is in line with the combined effect of sections 12 and 17 which have saddled the commission with the responsibility to ensure effective implementation, evaluation and monitoring of the UBE programme of the federal government.
“This is to help teachers, schools managers and other stakeholders in basic and secondary education institutions in Nigeria to identify areas of deficiencies in achieving curriculum goals and help to remedy these deficiencies.

“As a matter of urgency, we call on the federal government, state governments, and the 774 local governments to adopt remedial measures to ensure the immediate registration of the 20.2 million out-of-school children in schools.
 “If the said sum of N68 billion  unmatched grant is not accessed by the 36 state governments and the FCT before January 15, 2024, we shall seek an order of mandamus to compel them to do so forthwith,” he added.

Earlier, the letter written by Falana Chambers to UBEC said it confirmed that un-accessed matching grant by state governments and the FCT administration from 2005–2023 to be N80.1 billion.
“As this request is made pursuant to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2011, you are required to accede to our request within seven days of the receipt of this letter,” Falana stressed.

However, the response by the UBEC to Falana stated that counterpart funding lodged by seven states as of December 11 was N10.6 billion.

The states include: Osun with N1.3 billion; Niger paid N2.6 billion; Taraba’s lodgement was N1.39 billion; Sokoto’s was N1.39 billion, while Enugu, Jigawa and Ondo paid N1.7 billion, N697 million and N1.39 billion respectively.