Where Are UBE Funds?

[Richard Akindele]

If there is any reason why Nigeria is not making appreciable progress in its educational front, it is the attitude of those charged with the responsibility of driving programmes and policies of government.

A clear proof of this is the report of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) which indicted many states on how they mismanaged the UBE funds.

The report noted that the few states which managed the funds well, were either new or non-oil producing states. The older or oil-producing states either embezzled or diverted the UBE funds to other projects.

The UBE scheme is supposed to be the bedrock of revolutionizing early education in Nigeria. It was one of the earliest programmes launched by the Obasanjo administration in Sokoto. The UBE scheme, as conceived, is to encourage massive school enrolment to reduce the level of illiteracy drastically in Nigeria. The federal government had voted billions of naira to drive the project. Even foreign donor agencies also donated in aid the programme. These funds were allocated to the various state governments to execute the programme through the State Primary Education Boards, (SPEB).

However, the vexatious irony is that oil-producing states which should have more money are the very same that either embezzled the funds or diverted them to other concerns.

As usual with most politicians, the funds were regarded as booty and thus treated with a bazaar spirit. In some states, the funds soon became veritable means by which party allies and cronies of government officials were patronized with either terribly inflated, or in some cases, fictitious contracts.

Whether the funds were diverted or embezzled is condemnable. The misapplication of the funds compromises the policy, thwarts the UBE objective and jeopardizes the educational career of the children. In a country where there is a frantic attempt to rebuild an educational sector that is in ruins, the misuse of the UBE funds by politicians, many of whose children are either in foreign or exclusive private schools, amounts to a cardinal sin against the future of the hapless children of the poor for whom the scheme is targeted.

The report had added that even in places where classroom structures were built at all, they fell below acceptable standards.

If it was bad for the indicted state governments to misuse the funds, it was worse for the federal government to have ignored the UBE mess for so long. Its seeming indifference encouraged the thieving states to deepen their reach on the UBE funds.

The response of the UBEC is coming at a time when maximum damage had already been done to the essence of the scheme.

And it betrays the insufficient seriousness the government attaches to its programmes. A proper close-marking of the projects by technical experts from the presidency would have averted the present sorry pass where the state governments had a free reign with the funds for so long.

That the funds for the education of a nation's children could be mindlessly embezzled by persons elected by the would-be beneficiaries, is the height of political treachery. The perpetrators should not be spared from facing their justly-deserved wrath of the anti-corruption laws.

Besides the need to name and shame the indicted state governments, culprits must be identified and compelled to refund their ill-gotten wealth.

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