AN OPEN LETTER TO HIS EXCELLENCY, THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR OF KEBBI STATE

Let me begin by congratulating you on your election victory and, subsequently, your swearing in as the state governor. As with every election, yours was also hard-fought, and luckily most of the people chose you to lead them. As someone once said "with great power comes great responsibilities". You have achieved the glory of winning an election; now it is time to do good.
As a responsible indigene of Kebbi State, I am writing this letter to bring to your attention some issues that I believe require your urgent attention.

It is the duty of the state government to put in place all necessary mechanisms that would ensure our state not only survives the economic hardship we face today but thrives to make a better tomorrow. Education is one of the many areas where I think it can bring about such a positive change. The world is rapidly changing and advancing, and we need to keep up with these changes. As with everything good, it comes with a price: changing the status quo and gradually eliminating any vested interests.

As a schoolteacher turned administrator, I interact and correspond between my school and the state Ministry of Education. Over the years, my relationship with the State Ministry of Education has deteriorated rapidly.

I commend the state government for paying WAEC fees for indigenes of Kebbi State. However, there are corrupt practices that precede the time for writing these exams that need urgent attention. I assure you that everything I am going to tell you in this letter is true:

1. Our QUALIFYING EXAMS for SS2 students are no longer marked and properly assessed. Students are scored at random for Mathematics and English alone. The remaining subjects are no longer even looked at. Most of the time, the best-performing students in our school mysteriously fail, while the remaining many who do not perform any better than the former miraculously pass.

2. There is nothing even remotely realistic about the exams anymore, as all the exam question papers are always leaked right before the exam commencement date. You see students purchasing them at many computer business centers in different towns across the state.

3. This year, in 2023, we were called by an official from the State Ministry of Education to pay N500 for every student at our school that will sit for this year’s Qualifying Exam.

4. Last year alone, my school had to clandestinely pay some officials at the State Ministry of Education a sum of more than N200,000 they demanded to not fail some of our students.
5. Fast forward to some days before the WAEC exam commencement date, when schools are called upon to collect WAEC calculators (Kapek) for their students. The first thing is that for every 10 students, only 9 calculators will be issued. In addition to that, N200 had to be paid for every calculator given. So, if a school has 150 students, only 135 calculator sets will be issued, and N200 must be paid times 135 = N27,000. The remaining 15 will be bought from the same ministry officials at a rate not less than N1,000.

Your excellency let me state this categorically: it has never been this bad!.

Your Excellency, I suggest the following:

1. In the past, structures were in place to make sure credible exams were administered and properly assessed by qualified individuals. The structure needs to be revived. The exam booklets can be distributed across the state for marking and scoring by individuals anonymous to the schools or students, i.e., exams written in Bunza local government can be marked by individuals from Koko local government.

2. As for the untimely release of the question papers, the State Ministry of Education can send a soft copy of the day’s exam question papers to all zonal education offices across the state in the morning to print and distribute to the respective schools. For schools in remote places, the same soft copy can be sent to them, as most schools write the questions on a blackboard. One WhatsApp group can solve such a problem entirely.

3. Corrupt practices of illegally demanding payments from schools can be avoided by warning all school representatives to desist from making such payments even when demanded. There should also be a place where corrupt ministry officials are reported and dealt with.

4. If any payment needs to be made, it should be made to the state Treasury Single Account via Remita. No side or cash payment.

5. Finally, I hope a centralized school database will be established to keep track of all secondary school students within the state. This will give the state real-time access to student information and help it make better and more informed decisions pertaining to secondary education.

Your Excellency, you need to be well informed of the deteriorating state of education in our state. Since the beginning of this century, we have not made any significant progress in improving our educational system. We have seen how poorly students are graduating from our primary and secondary schools, and we are also witnessing the problem of not being able to properly replace our good old teachers with new ones that are even at par with them, let alone their betters.
It is only when good ones leave, and better ones come in that we know progress is being made and sustained. If we continue this trajectory, history will never be kind to any of us, and posterity will know the infested house we left them.
I urge you to act and right the wrongs that you can to the best of your ability. God-willing, in the years to come, you will have in abundance good medical practitioners to care for you when you are sick, good teachers to tutor your grandchildren, spend less or nothing on security, and have a fair and sane environment where, even after your lifetime, your grandchildren will say in appreciation of your efforts, "Some men made great sacrifices for us to enjoy the lives we enjoy today; we will not let it go in vain".
May God the Almighty bless your administration and the people of Kebbi State.

Anonymous from Kebbi North.

This should get to the front page