Falana calls on the National Assembly to address the epidemic of absenteeism in Nigeria

Femi Falana, a human rights attorney and activist, has urged the National Assembly to intervene in Nigeria’s grave out-of-school problem in order to save the future of the nation.

At a summit on Nigeria’s out-of-school crisis organised by the UK charity, IA-Foundation, in Lagos over the weekend, Falana made an appeal in a speech he read.

The outspoken campaigner said that access to basic education in Nigeria was being hampered by state governments’ failure to match federal funding for the Universal Basic Education Fund.

According to a UNESCO estimate from 2022, Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, has almost 20 million children who are not enrolled in school.

Falana highlighted the urgency of quick action in his speech, which was made accessible to the press in Abuja on Sunday. He bemoaned the rising rate of out-of-school youth in the nation.

He asserts that the state governments must pay matching contributions to the Universal Basic Education Fund in accordance with Section 2 of the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act, which has long been disregarded.

The activist stated that the National Assembly should see to it that the constitution is amended to provide the federation’s accountant-general the authority to take from sources the counterpart funds owed by each state government.

“Mr. Hamid Bobboyi, the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), lamented the state governments’ failure to contribute matching financing and make use of the yearly matching grants provided by the commission to strengthen their basic education systems in June of last year.

“The panel was particularly concerned that in 2021, the states did not use roughly N110 billion of the intervention funds they had acquired from UBEC, leaving the money in the State Universal Basic Education Boards’ (SUBEBs) coffers.

“Sometime in 2017, we discovered that the federal government had agreed to reimburse state governments for all money that had already been taken out of their accounts to fulfil the demands of the London Paris Club.

“We persuaded the federal government to take away the equivalent fund that the state governments had neglected to add to the Universal Basic Education Fund.

The idea was adopted by the Federal Government, and as a result, N71.3 billion was taken out of the source and sent to UBEC’s account.

The states got a total of N142.6 billion for the provision of necessary infrastructure in public primary and junior secondary schools across the nation after UBEC added the matching payment of N71.3 billion.

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In accordance with Section 2 of the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act, the National Assembly shall address state governments’ refusal to make matching payments to the Universal Basic Education Fund.

In his view, the National Assembly must immediately ensure that the constitution is amended to provide the federation’s accountant-general the authority to deduct the counterpart sum that each state government owes from sources.

Falana continued by saying that now that all 36 of the states in the federation had ratified the Child’s Rights Act and passed a child rights law, it was the joint obligation of the federal, state, and local governments to make sure that every Nigerian child had access to free and compulsory education.

The Discrimination Against Persons With Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2019, he said, ensured that any person with a disability could get free education up to the senior secondary level.

In the same vein, all public schools, whether elementary, secondary, or tertiary, must include at least one employee who has been trained to support the educational development of people with disabilities or special facilities for the successful education of people with disabilities.

Because the political class, made up of representatives from all registered political parties, has not shown any commitment to ensuring that every child in Nigeria receives a quality education, these laws have been violated.

“The members of the legislative and executive branches of government have failed to recognise the threat posed by the highest number of children out of school in the world—18.5 million.

Making the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act stricter for parents won’t help in a place where there is a lot of poverty, according to Falana.

(NAN)