After almost 72 hours of my write up on the misapplication or even total lack of application of the 2016 appropriation to Education; after deep brainstorming between members of the inner kitchen of the government; after nocturnal meetings were held trying to make up the shenanigans to confront me; after several top civil servants in the Ministry of Education were asked to write a rejoinder to me and, they refused, finally the Commissioner of Education and deputy governor of Bauchi State Engineer Nuhu Gidado has taken the gauntlet. He has written a rejoinder to my article through his media aide.
But if after such innuendos, what I read just this morning, is all I could get as a rejoinder, then my fears have further been confirmed that this government is a total joke! I am further deeply disappointed. This is the lowest a government could descend.
All that the rejoinder could do was to dismiss me as a liar, but couldn’t put to lie the facts and the figures contained in my article. No wonder it took them almost three days before they could put up a reply. They obviously were rattled by the facts and, the figures that kept staring them in the face.
Let me make it categorically clear again that BASG under Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar, and his deputy Nuhu Gidado (Commissioner of Education), have very little or nothing to show in the Education sector after they allocated the stupendous amount of N26.7 billion to the sector in 2016 alone. No one can tell what happened to these money!
The commissioner in his reply asked me a question, apparently in reaction to my statement that all the monies that have been spent on Education do not come from the state government. Hear his question; “Does Musa Azare want(s) us to believe that he is truly ignorant of the fact that no monies can be expended without them being appropriated?”
Well, I am aware! But do you know where the problem is? Those World Bank/SEPIP monies were never appropriated in the 2016 fiscal year. All the MoUs your government entered into were signed within the 2016 fiscal year, long after the appropriation has been signed into law. So how can those monies be said to be appropriated in the 2016 fiscal year?
The general public should know that a well informed source in the Bauchi State House of Assembly, BAHA, who is conversant with what is happening, told me that the level of implementation of the 2016 appropriation, its aggregate not segregate, is less than 30 percent. The worst I ever know, anywhere in the world!
The commissioner said in his rather porous rejoinder that I. “deliberately choose to ignore” that the State Universal Basic Education, SUBEB is all over the state reconstructing and renovating primary schools.
Well, I was trying to be charitable! But since you want me to go there, I will go! I will expose the sham that has become of SUBEB under you. The contract scams; who gets what contract and at how much cost; where does the SUBEB funds come from; what were the funds meant for and how they are spent; plus why did Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC say I will not give intervention funds to Bauchi State Government again. This will come in an article I will tag, #OpeningBASG: Focus on SUBEB.
The commissioner contradicted himself when he said I lie about a certain $58 million the M A Abubakar administration inherited from the former administration of Isa Yuguda. Do you know the lie the commissioner said I cooked? That the money was actually $50 million! Can you imagine! Why not even say I misquoted the figure? Anyway, I am happy BASG has finally own up to the reality that it indeed inherited $50 million from the the past administration of Isa Yuguda.
Now the big questions! What have you done with the $50 million you inherited from Isa Yuguda apart from the 10 Hilux vans you purchased? What have you done with the money apart from the kangaroo training you organized for 350 teachers in Kangere and another 50 in Kaduna? How many teachers do we have in Bauchi State?
Although in October 2016, part of the money was used to sponsor the leisure trip of a certain perm sec, a handful of favorite directors and a prominent member of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, to Dubai. While these officials were on their leisure trip, Bauchi state teachers were denied international capacity building trainings in South Africa, Singapore and Brazil. Part of the $50 million was supposed to be used to develop our teachers for efficient training of their students, but were diverted to leisure travels of a few government officials that have not added any value to the education sector.
Part of the money could also be used to renovate Government Day Secondary School Kofar Wambai in Bauchi metropolis – the most dilapidated secondary school throughout the state. But instead, you came up with the School Base Management Committee, SBMC, through which millions of naira is being siphoned. You should have strengthen the Parent Teachers Association, PTA, instead of the duplication that is SBMC.
As for the other money I mentioned in my article which I said was received by BASG from USAID three months ago, I want to tell the world that during the first meeting between BASG and USAID officials in Kano, even the ministry’s information officer has not been invited because they wanted to keep it secret. This secrecy continued up to the level of signing the MoU in Abuja. So, nobody knows how much BASG got from that MoU, whether cash or otherwise.
In the final analysis, I want to ask the honorable commissioner the following questions; how much is your ministry paying teachers of core subjects? How much are you paying teachers posted to rural areas as rural allowances? How judicious did your government utilized the $50 million you inherited from Isa Yuguda?
Musa Azare
SA Media and Communication to the Teeming Masses of Bauchi State.
