REVEALED: Nomadic Commission Stinks!

Written by admin // September 14, 2012 // 0 Comments

prof rukayya rufa'i education minister

The monumental fraud involving billions of Naira at the National Nomadic Commission has rendered 21 years old outfit comatose, writes Ohia Israel

In 1989 when the Federal Government established the National Commission for Nomadic Education, the major reason why it created that Commission was to create wider opportunities for an estimated 9.3 million nomads living in Nigeria to acquire literacy. This commission was established to address low literacy rates among pastoral nomads and migrant fishermen, which put literacy rates at 0.28 percent and 20 percent respectively according to a Federal Ministry of Education FME, report of 2005. However, today that goal which was the reason behind the creation of that Commission has turned to a charade as its aims and goals still remain to be met.
Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights of UNESCO 2003 stipulates that: “Education is both a human right in itself and indispensable means of realizing other human rights.” As an empowerment right, education is the primary vehicle by which economically and socially marginalized adults and children can lift themselves out of poverty and obtain the means to participate fully in their communities. Education has a vital role in empowering women, street hawking children from exploitative and hazardous labour and sexual exploitation, promoting human rights and democracy, protecting the environment, and controlling population growth.
Also the second ‘International Development Goal’ seeks to address this challenge through the provision of universal primary education in all countries by 2015. But these Development Goals have continued to crawl like snail as nothing tangible has come out of it. Even as Nigeria’s nomadic people represent a sizable population that needs access to basic educational provisions to acquire literacy and skills, they still lack this basic access to education. Essentially, nomadic people have been described in terms of what they do not have. They do not have access to adequate food, clean water, healthcare, clothes, or shelter. They do not possess basic literacy skills. Their children do not have access to basic education. Young female nomads do not have the cultural freedom to marry who they want to marry. Nomadism refers to any type of existence characterized by the absence of a fixed domicile and they are into three categories of nomadic groups such as hunter/food gatherers, itinerant fishermen, and pastoralists (a.k.a., herdsmen). And in Nigeria, there are six nomadic groups; The Fulani (with population of 5.3 million, the Shuwa with population of 1.0 million, the Buduman with population of 35,001), The Kwayam with population of 20,000, the Badawi with population yet to be established, the Fishermen with population of 2.8 million, while the last group of the Fishermen, is concentrated in Rivers, Ondo, Edo, Delta, Cross River, and Akwa-Ibom States.

The other first five nomadic groups listed are considered pastoralist nomads.
However in-depth investigation by DESERT HERALD shows that Nomadic Commission has done little or nothing to salvage the lives of these people. For instance, N950 million was earmarked for the Nomadic Commission between 2006 and 2009 by the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs. An investigation into the alleged fraud at the Nomadic Commission shows that it has been perpetrated in the said commission through phantom projects. According to our findings, three officials of the Commission were indicted by the governing council of the Commission after it investigated the implementation of its projects and how also funds were managed by the Commission’s officials.
Three top officials of the agency, including the Executive Secretary who is currently under suspension, were said to have misappropriated the funds released by the office of MDGs to cater for the needs of the Commission. The officials include the Executive Secretary, Mrs Nafisat Mohammed, the acting Deputy Director, Administration, Jacs Nkume and the Chief Engineer, Modibbo Tahir. These individuals were indicted by the committee constituted in 2011 to investigate the way the funds of the agency were expended between 2006 and 2009.
This paper gathered that the agency was one of the beneficiaries of the debt relief gains set up during the Olusegun Obasanjo administration. Accordingly, this scheme was meant to start with 206 schools and cater for about 1500 pupils, a quest which the officials of the Commission have quashed.
In the 81 page report which was submitted by the investigating committee, top officials of the Commission spearheaded by its Executive Secretary Mrs. Mohammed were involved in financial embezzlement, execution of snake oil contracts and mismanagement of funds meant to uplift the largely impecunious nomadic communities traversing the country. As gathered from the report, about N1 billion was purportedly diverted by the top officials in their private pockets.
For instance, most projects that were also recorded to have been completed never existed. Such projects include the allocation of funds for grazing reserves in Mariga Niger State in 2009. The contract was awarded at the sum of N29.6m, while a breakdown of the contract shows that N2.2m was for the supply of school furniture, preparation of assembly grounds and a football pitch, while another N6.7m was for the construction of a block of clinics. The sum of N17.8m was for the construction of a block of three classrooms, an office, a store and a block of two bedroom flats. The construction of a hay barn and three units of VIP toilets were to gulp a princely sum of N2.9m.
However, the committee expressed displeasure on the Bobi Grazing Reserve projects; there were shoddy jobs and outright falsification by the agency’s officials. In fact, the committee’s report branded the Bobi’s fraud a disaster as the contractor was paid before the completion of the said project. The report also showed that about three classrooms were built on a swampy area without concrete foundation and were therefore vulnerable.
The report also pointed out that the two blocks of 2-bedroom flat staff quarters are only a room and parlour each, while the hay barn is rather a bad hut for organic manure making, because both the floor and the ceiling have swollen (sic) from rainwater coming from the rotten roof. The committee further asserted that some materials and equipment were not supplied, which include some overhead tanks deliberately included in the bill of quantities, but not supplied.
Agreeing with the committee’s report a Kano-based external audit firm, Sulaiman and Co, when its officials undertook a trip to the site of the projects, noted that the area was not fit for human habitation as no structure in the grazing reserve is fit for human habitation.
Meanwhile, during his appearance before the committee, the Commission’s Chief Engineer, Mr. Tahir agreed with the committee and the Kano Based audit firm, saying that Mobi is a disaster but that it can be modified.
Another area in the committee’s report where the Commission also did a shoddy job is in the award of contracts for the construction/equipping of model schools in fishing ports, surface fish pond, bore holes, provision of fishing equipment, construction of Assembly Hall, assembly ground and provision of fishing equipment at the National Commission for Nomadic Education in Ido Osi Ekiti, Ekiti State.
The report, however, revealed that there were partial fulfillment and shoddy jobs exhibited by the commission’s contractors. The construction and equipping of model schools was not fully implemented. Infact, only one school was being constructed, but not completed yet, the report said. The surface fish pond was constructed, but it has gone into disuse. The boreholes that were constructed in 2006 were currently not in use, because the water was found to be salty. There was no evidence of the existence of the NCNE in Ido Osi Ekiti.
The committee also stated that in the Ido Osi case stored anger enveloped when the State Ministry of Education and the MDGs office in Ado Ekiti went on fact finding mission to the area. They were reported to have been attacked by the villagers who mistaken them for the NCNE officials. The report stated that there was no evidence of the construction of Assembly Hall, assembly grounds and others too at Ido Osi; equally the provision of fishing equipment at Ido Osi was absent, just as all the projects claimed to be in Ido Osi by the commission did not actually exist.
The story is similar in Gombe State, where the committee said: “there was a wide disparity between the amount appropriated and the cost of each project and also between amount appropriated and the amount accessed for each project. In most cases, project costs were far less than half of appropriations made. But project costs and amount accessed were, in most cases, neck-to-neck with little or no variation. In some cases, projects worth millions of naira were not executed at all.
For example, the committee noted that 20 concrete wells awarded for construction in Gombe were not in evidence. Senior officials of the commission were alleged to have also outrightly defrauded people of millions of naira by making them contribute towards projects already budgeted for, with funds accessed.
In Kaduna, in a project titled, Habbanae Livestock Rearing (animal husbandry) five women cooperative groups started with 25 goats and 25 sheep of their own which increased to 150 goats and 150 sheep and six cows. The report said there was no appropriation of funds made for the project by the commission. However, the commission, in its books, claimed to have expended millions of naira on the project.”
It is the same story in Kano, as the commission budgeted about ten million naira for 20 concrete wells, but the SME and SUBEB officials denied any knowledge of the projects.
In Zamfara, the committee recommended that; “the commission should be made to account for the sum of N6,130,000.00, which they spent to achieve only 20% project implementation status in the construction of a bore hole. Concluding, the committee observed that under-performance, use of substandard materials, abandonment of projects, negligence, impromptu release of funds, large scale embezzlement of funds etc, characterized the way the top officials of the commission handle the affairs of the agency.
Another model school that the commission built for N13 million in Bakin- Dutse, Zamfara State, suffered a similar fate. The ceiling of the classrooms simply collapsed following the first rainfall after construction. Just like in Bobi, half of the students stopped school as their parents feared for their safety.
Also in Tudun Fulani Nomadic Primary School, Minna, where the commission says it spent N3.2 million to build a borehole, the pupils there have to bring water in polythene sachets from home, to be able to get water to drink while in school.
The woman, who was in charge of the NCNE during those periods, up until 2011, Nafisatu Mohammed, has since been suspended from office. Based on the recommendations of the various audit committees the NCNE and Mrs. Mohammed are being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
However, DESERT HERALD gathered that Mrs. Mohammed is lobbying to avoid prosecution just as her tenure as head of the agency will officially end this September. Mohammed, according to a reliable source within the agency, had wanted to take advantage of the vacuum created by these events. She had planned to sneak back into the agency, but she was said to have been checkmated by the new Minister of State for Education, Hon. Nyesom Wike, who is said to have zero tolerance for corruption. He was said to have instituted a panel to investigate the officials even as he affirmed the suspension of the Executive Secretary and the other affected officials.
Even as Mrs. Mohammed was suspended and is being investigated, no other official of any of the education agencies has been punished for mismanaging MDG funds, although other agencies such as the Federal Inspectorate Service were also indicted for mismanaging public funds.
Today, of the estimated 9.3 million people that currently comprise Nigeria’s nomadic groups, approximately one third, that is 3.1 million, are of school and pre-school ages. The pastoral nomads are more highly disadvantaged than the migrant fishermen in terms of access to education. This is primarily because they are more itinerant in nature. As a result, the literacy rate of pastoral nomads is only 0.28 percent, while that of the migrant fishermen is about 20 percent. The basic responsibility of the Commission for Nomadic Education, among others, is to provide primary education to the children of pastoralist nomads – a responsibility shared with the States and Local Governments. To provide education to its nomads, a multifaceted strategy has been adopted by the Commission that includes on-site schools, the ‘shift system,’ schools with alternative

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