[size=14pt]Officials plunder nomadic education funds[/size]

By 234Next


Muhammed Abdullahi, a tall, dark, slim man wakes up every morning with one thing in mind: how to find food for his cows. Thirty years old, Mr Muhammed was born in a Fulani village in Gwagwalada, a suburb of Abuja. He has no formal education and has just gotten married. Mr Abdullahi, who was dressed in a worn blue long-sleeved shirt on black trouser, says he is not educated because there is no school in his community. “My elders in my village say they know that the federal government has provided some money for some people to do some things like education and water for us,” he said in Hausa, his feet covered by dust from his long walk with his cattle. “But we have not seen anything on ground.”


Nomadic education

In 1990, the National Commission for Nomadic Education was set up to bring education closer to cattle rearers like Mr Abdullahi and reduce widespread illiteracy among the population. The commission, which began operation with 206 schools, 1,500 students and 499 teachers, was established by the Nigerian government to complement the Ibrahim Babangida administration’s effort to achieve education for all. But the organisation has failed in the purpose for which it was established, as thousands of nomads remain uneducated. Irked by this and other sharp practices in the commission, its governing board inaugurated a committee to investigate how the monies budgeted for capital projects between 2006 and 2009 were spent. The agency, says the investigative committee, has become a cesspit of corruption, as its senior officials, led by its executive secretary, Nafisatu Mohammed, engage in financial misappropriation, execution of phony contracts, and mismanagement of funds meant for the uplifting of the largely penurious nomadic communities across the country.

Funds that could have been used to build schools in communities such as Mr Abdullahi’s have allegedly been stolen. The report of the probe, obtained exclusively by NEXT, is shocking. It details how Mrs Mohammed and other senior officials of the commission including Jacs Nkume, the acting deputy director, administration; and Modibbo Tahir, the chief engineer, plundered the N950 million Millennium Development Goal grant which accrued to the commission between 2006 and 2009. The funds were meant for a nationwide education of nomads and their families, most of whom earn their living from subsistence farming and animal grazing.

The unsavoury development at the agency is a big blow to Nigeria’s quest to achieve goal two of the MDGs, which aim to make countries around the world attain universal basic education for their citizens by 2015. Sub-Saharan Africa, of which Nigeria is a part, is home to a vast majority of children out of school and the United Nations’ expectation is that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. Mr Abdullahi’s five-year-old nephew, Mahmud, is not in school because the commission has not found it necessary to establish a school there. Every day, Mahmud accompanies his uncle on the long walk in search of food for his cows.

http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/main-square/62721-officials-plunder-normadic-education-funds.html

The commission, which began operation with 206 schools, 1,500 students and 499 teachers, was established by the Nigerian government to complement the Ibrahim Babangida administration’s effort to achieve education for all. But the organisation has failed in the purpose for which it was established, as thousands of nomads remain uneducated.

Their figures are very impressive ; An average of 7 students per school and 3 students per teacher. It should be enough to educate anyone. I don't even think that Prince Williams got this kind of attention in school. If the govt is funding nomadic education which can only be found in the North, what equivalent social programme do we have in the south?.

Bobi Grazing Reserve

In 2009, the commission approved four contracts for the Bobi Grazing Reserve in Mariga, Niger State — to supply school furniture, the preparation of assembly grounds and football pitch at N2.2million; the construction of a block of “human clinics” at N6.7million; the construction of a block of three classrooms, an office, a store, and a block of two-bedroom flats at N17.8million; and the construction of a hay barn and three units of VIP toilets at N2.9 million. After visiting the project site, the investigative committee declared the project a fraud.

“The fraud at Bobi is a disaster: the contractor was paid before the completion of the work,” the committee observed. “The three classrooms were built on swamp without concrete foundation; there are no real blackboards. There are only a few books. The two blocks of 2-bedroom flat staff quarters are only a room and parlour each.”

The committee was not done. It expressed irritation that the assembly ground was not built at all while the floor of the VIP toilets had caved in, a situation that forced the community to shut them down to protect their children. “What is at Bobi Game Reserve as a hay barn,” the panel further observed, “is rather a bad hut for organic manure making because both the floor and the ceiling have swollen (sic) from rainwater coming from the rotten roof.”

The committee also noted that items, such as a number of plastic overhead tanks were deliberately included in the bill of quantities but not provided. However, it was not only the committee that condemned the fraud at Bobi Game Reserve. An external auditor from Sulaiman and Co, a Kano-based audit firm, made the same observations months before the investigating team.

“No structure in the grazing reserve is fit for human habitation,” the auditor stated in a comment he left on the visitor’s book when he visited the reserve.


Is this education?

Mrs Mohammed and her colleagues did not only deny the nomads their right to quality educational facilities, they had also, by their actions, made the peasants lose interest in education.

The leader of the herdsmen told the investigative team in anger: “Is this why we should want our children to have education (pointing to the bad structure)? If this is all, we are happier and safer in our huts.”

Even Mrs Mohammed and the chief engineer at the commission, Modibbo Tahir, agreed that the structures at Mobi were substantial.

“Mobi is a disaster,” Mr Tahir admitted. “But it can be mended.” The engineer, who reportedly said he had more important official chores to do than monitor projects, could however not explain why physical surveys were not carried out on the project site despite the fact that funds were allocated for that purpose.

I thought they claimed that hausa-Fulanis do not like money, it is only Southerners who like money, they rather love Mohammed instead?.

aloy-emeka:

Their figures are very impressive ; An average of 7 students per school and 3 students per teacher. It should be enough to educate anyone. I don't even think that Prince Williams got this kind of attention in school. If the govt is funding nomadic education which can only be found in the North, what equivalent social programme do we have in the south?.

They have also for the fishing communities down south but if everything is right then it should hve included those apprentice working in aba or onitsha market. To me they should scrap this nomadic education because kids are suppose to be in school within their community and not following cows or fishing with their parents.

Pharoh:

They have also for the fishing communities down south but if everything is right then[b] it should hve included those apprentice working in aba or onitsha market.[/b] To me they should scrap this nomadic education because kids are suppose to be in school within their community and not following cows or fishing with their parents.

Are those apprentices in Aba and Onitsha not receiving informal education?. They trade and some of them  later evolve into businessmen. How can you compare them with nomads and cattle rearing besides, majority of them finished high school but majority of the nomads haven't been to any formal school in their lives so they can't read and write?

aloy-emeka:

Are those apprentices in Aba and Onitsha not receiving informal education?. They trade and some of them  later evolve into businessmen. How can you compare them with nomads and cattle rearing besides, majority of them finished high school but majority of the nomads haven't been to any formal school in their lives so they can't read and write?

Informal education is not the same as nomadic education, nomadic education is the same as what you get in the classroom but just that the classroom moves with you anywhere you go. Whatever business you do, i am very sure that you will be educated in the business language and other stuffs. Those nomadic students can sure read and write in Arabic with some education about cattle rearing business. We are talking here about education that leads to a certificate or diploma in the long run.

Do they teach those apprentice social studies, science, mathematics, English and agriculture studies?. These kids ( almajiri, fishermen, apprentice ) should not be involved in such business but they should be in the normal classroom. Nomadic education is like giving those hawkers on Lagos highway two to five hours a day education. My point is they should not be involved in such business and be in normal classrooms during the day time. Let secondary school leavers be the people who should be involved in such activities. How can someone from the age of 7 or 8 be chasing cow until the end of his life without proper education?.