‘UBEC books on black market’

The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has said books meant for public school pupils are sold on the black market. The Executive Secretary, Dr. Dikko Suleiman, made the assertion when officials of a civil society organisation, Human Development Initiative (HDI) paid a courtesy call on the commission in Abuja.   Dr. Suleiman said the inability of […]

The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has said books meant for public school pupils are sold on the black market.
The Executive Secretary, Dr. Dikko Suleiman, made the assertion when officials of a civil society organisation, Human Development Initiative (HDI) paid a courtesy call on the commission in Abuja.  
Dr. Suleiman said the inability of the commission to monitor the activities of the local government education authorities (LEAs) was worrisome, adding that some text books for public schools were traded illegally.
“The most disheartening thing is that you see the books you purchased for the states being sold in the market and you can’t do anything about it because you don’t have the mandate to prosecute,” he said.
The research and programme officer of the organization, Samuel Olayemi, called on the National Assembly to enact appropriate laws to empower UBEC to monitor how government’s intervention funds on education are distributed.
“We are calling on the appropriate authorities to empower UBEC more in terms of its roles. They should be empowered to monitor whatever is given to the states down to the local government education authorities,” he said.
Olayemi said most of the counterpart funds meant for education development have not been accessed by some state governments, stressing that such actions were detrimental to development.