For 18 years, federating states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) failed to access a whopping N68,737,873,073.52 billion education grant set aside to aid educational development in their various domains.
The fund, expected to attract counterpart fund from benefitting states, is domiciled with the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).
While states and FCT have turned a blind eye to the fund since 2005, out-of-school children statistics keep soaring, with the United Nations Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) estimating their number to be about 20.3 million.
Rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, who requested data from the UBEC, is now threatening litigation if the needful is not done with the dormant fund, to cater to the under-privileged children.
In a letter to the commission, dated November 24, 2023, the Senior Advocate of Nigerian (SAN) relied on the Freedom of Information Act, to demand “information on the provision of counterpart funding by the 36 states governments and the FCT, to access the outstanding matching grants”.
While responding, UBEC, through its director of finance and accounts, Adamu Misau, noted that, “the total un-accessed matching grant from all states from 2005 to 2023 stood at N68, 737,873,073.52, as of December 11, 2023”.
The response from the commission was dated December 11, 2023.
UBEC, however, observed that seven states of Osun, Niger, Taraba, Sokoto, Enugu, Jigawa, Ondo, have made moves to access their allotted grant by providing their counterpart fund.
“The total state counterpart fund lodged by seven states stood at N10,603, 247,284.94 billion, and are at various stages of accessing their matching grant as of December 11, 2023” the commission hinted.
The accompanying documents showed the counterpart fund lodgment made by the seven “serious” states as of December 4, 2023.
Osun state lodged N1,395,784,959.14, Niger; N2.6 billion, Taraba; N1.395,784,959.14, Sokoto; N1.395,784,959.14, Enugu; N1.722,215,968.81, Jigawa; N697,892,479.57, and Ondo; N1.395,784,959.14.
In the seven states, available record showed that the ongoing efforts to securing the fund from the commission were made in 2023 by the current leadership in the states.
In a statement forwarded to the Nigerian Tribune on Thursday, Falana who heads Alliance on Surviving Covid 19 and Beyond (ASCAB), a policy-advocate watchdog, demanded immediate action on the fallow fund and the out-of-school crisis.
He stated: “In early 2023, UNICEF estimated the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria to be 20.2 million. The report 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.
“It said one in every five out-of-school children in the world is in Nigeria. Over 60 per cent of the illiterate are in the North. The report has confirmed that Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world.
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