For three days, Governor Nasir El Rufai literally re-located Kaduna
State Government House to the cosy 5th Chuker Polo and Country Club,
about 15km east of Kaduna metropolis.
Though a day’s meal at the 5th Chuker can consume the minimum wage,
and its average room rates for the three days may sound indecent for a
state government that preaches frugality, the business El Rufai had
at hand was multi-billion in nature, populist, earnest and somewhat
ambitious. On the table was the primary and secondary school incentive
that the governor swore to deliver.
And it was with clear from the excitement he exuded when he spoke to journalists after the three-day retreat.
Said the governor: “We have been deliberating on the practicability
of our manifesto to our people who voted out the past government and
brought us in.
“Every Commissioner here has brought a blue print of what he intends to do, and how he intends to achieve it.
“As you know, we have been able to rake N24 billion through the
Single Treasury Account, STA, initiative from so many accounts owned by
government which we never knew existed.
“Just I have promised, no primary school pupil will pay a penny as
tuition, Parent Teacher Association levy or any sort of levy. That means
that parents of these pupils will save N3.7 billion annually that was
charged them.
“Let me repeat, any school that asks for any kind of levy should
contact us and he will see the kind of disciplinary action that will be
taken.
“It is a disgrace that more than half of our primary school pupils
sit on bare floor and learn in dilapidated class rooms. That is
unacceptable. We have promised to provide furniture to all our
primary schools and renovate the schools to create a decent environment
for learning. We have already started working on that. The only snag
here is that we have to renovate and secure the classes first before
bringing in the furniture.
“Also, we are embarking on a free lunch programme for the one million
pupils in our primary schools and that will cost N9 billion to cover
one million children in one year. The state House of Assembly has
already appropriated N1 billion for that. But the free lunch will start
from next term. Women were involved in selling food to these pupils
will be first considered to partake in the excercise. By this, we are
also creating jobs and reducing poverty.
“Today, only N11 Naira is used to feed each boarding school
student in this state per meal, which is unacceptable. We have resolved
to raise it by 500%. Each student will now be fed on N66 per meal to
mean that we shall spend N200 million per term or N600 million per
year. That will cover our 273,000 boarding students.
“We are very serious about securing our school lands and the
integrity of our school system. We are going to secure and fence all our
school lands and we are going to directly send money to the principals
and Headmasters of each secondary and primary, but there will be a
School Management Board in place.
“The management board will be made up of members of the community who
shall ensure the prudent use of the funds. That means that local
community leaders will be actively involved in the supervision of these
schools and they can reach us directly when there is a problem.
“Again, all our primary school pupils will be given free uniforms. We
have estimated that that venture alone will create 5,000 jobs for our
local tailors.
“We want to make our public schools models for others to copy. We
want to make public schools in Kaduna to attain the standard under which
we attended schools in those good old days.
“We want to also make the teaching profession more attractive for
competent hands to enter. That is why we are looking into the issues
that make teachers want to leave for other jobs immediately they have an
opening. We have asked for more people to apply. That is not all. After
the reduction of our ministries and the scraping of some government
organs, we discover that after we would have redeployed staff to areas
of competence, some may have to become teachers.
“All what have been saying must be implemented, because every
ministry must have a Performance Desk that will monitor projects and
implementation of our programmes. I have appointed an aide whom I
have empowered to breath down on everyone’s neck”.
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