NIGER STATE: 50 GHOST SCHOOLS……..

NIGER State governor, Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, has raised the alarm that  50 ghost schools have been discovered  on the nominal roll  in the state.

Governor Aliyu, who raised the alarm before the weekly State Executive Council Meeting at the Government House, Minna, lamented that the  Ghosts schools were discovered on the lists of the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, and the state Ministry of Education.

Aliyu noted that  the schools, which could not be located on ground anywhere in the state, must have gulped  several millions of naira on monthly basis, as they had been used to siphon money from the state coffers.

“Imagine  50 ghost schools. At least in each of the schools, there would not have been less than 10 teachers on the payroll. That would amount to 500  teachers. Imagin the salaries and allowances of ghost teachers in such ghost schools, the amount would have been monumental,”he stated.

Aside the 50 ghost schools, the governor was also briefed about  cases of about15 schools in Mashegu Local Government Area of the state which had only one Arabic teacher each.

Briefing the meeting before mediamen were excused out of the meeting, the Commissioner for Agriculture, who was the immediate past  Head of Service, (HoS), Ibrahim Ahmed Matane, decried the  level of infrastructural decay in the education sector in the local government.

The governor blamed  the Agriculture Commissioner for not briefing him on the level of decadence in Mashrgu schools, even when Matane was the Head of Service.

It will be recalled that Governor Aliyu took  unscheduled visits to some Primary schools in Minna city last year to ascertain the level of  dilapidation in such schools.

The  governor, after the visits,  lamented  the deplorable state of the schools visited, describing them as “eye sore.”v