The Ministry of Education is partnering with the State Security Services (SSS) to monitor Federal Government’s distribution of free instructional materials for basic education institutions.
The Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, said this when he paid a courtesy call on the Director General of SSS, Mr Ekpeyong Ita, on Monday in Abuja.
Wike said that the partnership was aimed at checking diversion and fraud in Federal Government and Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) textbooks distribution chain.
He said that under the partnership, SSS operatives in the 36 State Commands and Abuja would participate in the distribution of the textbooks meant for the 774 local government areas.
“This is right from the handing over of the textbooks and resource materials to the states by officials of the Federal Ministry of Education and UBEC.
“The direct involvement of security agencies at the highest command level became necessary because of the illegal actions of officials of the State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEB).
“These officials have been found to have diverted the books meant for less privileged Nigerian children,’’ he said.
He commended the SSS for the success already recorded in Niger, where three SUBEB officials were being prosecuted for diverting books meant for the state.
Wike said that the partnership was aimed at ensuring that all those involved in trying to sabotage the process were? fished out and prosecuted.
He added that it would also serve as deterrent to other would-be criminals in the distribution chain.
“We seek your partnership to help the Federal Government actualise the goal for basic education and the distribution of books.
“We urge you to help us check the leakages and sabotage in the distribution chain.
“We have come here to give the list of distribution of textbooks and library resource materials to individual states for the next phase to commence in November.
He said that the partnership would ensure that the books got to the end users.
In his response, Ita assured the Minister that the service would work toward ensuring that all books distributed by the Federal Government got to the end users.
He said that the service would also work with the ministry to monitor distribution of the textbooks and library resource materials to all the local governments through the state governments.
Ita said that there was a need to sanitise the distribution channel to avoid a situation where saboteurs would deny Nigerian children access to the textbooks.
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