MORE than 27 states, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), failed to access the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) matching grants in 2023, with approximately N36.17 billion lying fallow at the Central Bank of Nigeria.
According to the UBEC report, each Nigerian state was entitled to N1.395 billion in 2023, but only 12 states accessed the grants. They are Borno, Cross River, Delta, Enugu, Jigawa, Nasarawa, Ondo, Sokoto, Taraba and Zamfara.
Meanwhile, Rivers and Kano states only accessed N697.89 million and N814.21 million, respectively.
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The UBEC’s matching grant is a counterpart funding between the federal and state governments earmarked to tackle illiteracy and accelerate national development.
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.
With the fund, UBEC seeks an uninterrupted and compulsory nine years of primary and junior secondary school education for all Nigerian children.
According to the report, N51.64 billion ought to be accessed across the 36 states and FCT for 2023, but only N15.47 billion was collected.
The breakdown of the un-accessed funds by geopolitical zone shows that North-Central has N8.37 billion un-accessed funds, North-East has N5.58 billion, and the North-West region has N4.77 billion. For the Southern region, the South-East has N5.58 billion, the South-South has N3.49 billion, and the Sout-West has N8.37 billion.
This development is coming despite Nigeria having over 19 million out-of-school children. This figure, according to a report by The ICIR, makes the country have the third highest number of children deprived of education worldwide, according to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 2020 Model Estimates.
In Nigeria, 60 per cent of over 10 million out-of-school children are girls, whereas the global figure is 118.5 million girls out of school.
Also, The ICIR reported that 24.67 million children in the country were engaged in labour activities injurious to their physical and mental development in 2022. This figure represents 39.23 per cent of the total population of 62.90 million children in the country.
However, several investigations (here, here and here) by The ICIR have exposed how UBEC funds to execute projects were mismanaged.
Kehinde Ogunyale tells stories by using data to hold power into account. You can send him a mail at jameskennyogunyale@gmail or Twitter: Prof_KennyJames | LinkedIn: Kehinde Ogunyale