THE Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has updated its website, days after The ICIR published a report to draw attention to its abandonment.
A visit to the platform on Wednesday revealed that fresh contents have recently been uploaded and irrelevant ones removed — over a year after changes were last made to it. New pages have also been added to bring it closer to the template of the old website, which now redirects to it.
Five backdated news reports have been published, with their dates of publication ranging from March 19, 2018 to September 9, 2018. Unlike previous, now-deleted stories, they have greater details, are more recent, and are illustrated with appropriate images.
The list of projects on the website has been updated. Only five questionable projects were featured as at September 18 when The ICIR reported its observations, but this number has shot up to 244 projects, all stated as completed.
UBEC has also deployed the platform to make a call for tenders and expressions of interest for the implementation of 2018 capital and constituency projects. Most pages have been updated — from Matching Grants, Data, Report, Gallery, all five pages under About Us, to all 19 pages under Departments.
However, from indications, the site is still a work in progress. The commission’s official email address, a replacement of the former (info@ubeconline.com), is still unavailable, and some pages such as Research, Journals and Digest still have nothing under them. The social media links likewise remain unusable.
A little over a week ago, The ICIR reported how UBEC at the time used two official websites with neither being used effectively. Muhib Olaniyan, whose company designed the new website, and Garba Kwandi, who is supervising the website project, had told our reporter that work was still ongoing.
It was observed that, shortly following a call to Osom Osom, UBEC’s Public Relations Officer, the old UBEC website address started redirecting to the new address, though contents on the former had yet to be transferred at the time.
'Kunle works with The ICIR as an investigative reporter and fact-checker. You can shoot him an email via aadebajo@icirnigeria.org or, if you're feeling particularly generous, follow him on Twitter @KunleBajo.