By Adesina Wahab

Some critical stakeholders in the education sector have described the failure of some state governments to access about N68 billion grant from the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, as criminal.

According to them, the basic education sector is bedevilled with a number of problems which such an amount can help solve to some extent.

As at December 11, 2023, the total amount yet to be accessed by 11 state governments was N68.7 billion.

This is against the background that the nation has over 20.2 million children that are out of school.

The stakeholders include parents, under the auspices of the National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria, NAPTAN, and the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS. They spoke separately with Vanguard.

Speaking on behalf of parents, the National President of NAPTAN,  Haruna Danjuma, said such a development showed the levity with which leaders took serious issues.

“It is criminal for state governments to just let such huge sum of money lie fallow when we know the difficulties our basic education sector is facing.

”If it was possible, I would have suggested that UBEC should just use such funds to execute projects on behalf of the affected states. However, the law does not allow that.

“It is the state government, through the State Universal Basic Education Board, that will decide which project to execute and initiate a plan of action and send such to UBEC.

”After the project has been approved, the state will provide half of the cost of the project and UBEC will provide the remainder. So, UBEC cannot decide for the states which projects to execute, ” he explained.

Danjuma said the solution would be for President Bola Tinubu to call the state governors to a meeting and impress on them the need to provide the counterpart funding for the projects.

On his part, the Southwest Coordinator of NANS,  Alao John, noted that public schools were in poor condition, adding that it was unacceptable for states to shy away from accessing funds from UBEC.

“The main issue here is about accountability. Some states have been suspended from the fund because of the misuse of previous grants.

”There must be the assurance that funds meant for the purpose of renovating or building structures in the schools are judiciously used. That is why we are advocating that students should be part of decision making process,” he said.