Twenty-six states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory have as of March 28, 2024, lodged the sum of N32.5 billion counterpart fund with the Universal Basic Education Commission.
The lodgment of the fund will enable the states to access the yearly disbursement made available by the Federal Government through the Commission for states for the development of basic education.
The fund is deployed to improve the quality of basic education in all 36 states. Each state government is responsible for providing 50 per cent to match the annual disbursement provided by UBEC.
According to the document signed by UBEC’s Director of Finance, Adamu Misau, in response to a Freedom of Information request by human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, (SAN), the states who have lodged their counterpart fund include Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kaduna, Sokoto, Zamfara, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, Yobe, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau, FCT, Ekiti, Lagos, Ondo, Osun, Enugu, Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross-River, Delta, Edo, and Rivers states.
According to the document, the states lodged the sum of N1.2 billion each.
It was gathered by Sunday PUNCH that Adamawa and Bauchi states, in a data, jointly failed to access the funds from 2022 (N1.2bn) and 2023 (N1.3bn) respectively.
Benue, Kwara, and Niger states owed an accumulated sum of N2.6bn individually, due to their failure to access the intervention funds in 2022 and 2023.
Kogi, Plateau states, and the FCT presently have N1.3bn each not accessed, which is presently lodged with the commission from the 2023 disbursement.
Ekiti and Lagos states also failed to access the sum of N1.3bn each from the 2023 disbursement.
Further analysis of the data revealed that Ogun State remained one of the highest debtors on the list, having failed to access intervention funds from 2020 to 2023, taking to total amount not accessed by the state to N4.2bn.
The total amount unacessed by states in 2020 stood at N1.4bn; N2.8bn in 2021; N14.4bn in 2022 and N36.1bn in 2023.
In February 2024, human rights lawyer, Mrs Funmi Falana (SAN), dragged the 36 state governments and the FCT before the Federal High Court in Lagos, over their failure to access N68bn UBEC funds to provide free basic education for their citizens.
The senior advocate said the states failed to pay the counterparts funds necessary to access the UBEC funds to provide free basic education for citizens.
Also joined as defendants in the suit were the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman (SAN) and UBEC.
But, the NGF’s Education Advisor, Dr Ebenezer Leo The Great, in a recent interview with Saturday PUNCH, disclosed that the UBEC fund was trapped due to the inability of state governments to raise the 50 per cent counterpart of the amount they need.
Recently, the National President of the National Parents Teachers Association, Haruna Danjuma, criticized the failure of governors to access the fund.
“It is criminal for state governments to just let such a 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.”
