According to a news report from Leadership, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) is set to discuss the states' failure to access N45 billion in matching grants from the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).

NGF chair and Governor of Kwara State, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, stated on Friday that the forum would invite UBEC Executive Secretary Dr. Hamid Boboi to the next NGF meeting to shed more light on his claims that state governments have not accessed the substantial sum of N45 billion.

Governor AbdulRazaq said, “Based on this, we will invite UBEC to the next NGF meeting.” He also disclosed that many states had accessed the funds in the last two months.

“Moreover, N45 billion represents about one year’s backlog because every state gets about N1bn yearly,” the governor added.

UBEC said on Wednesday that many states were yet to access the N45.7 billion matching grant to implement Universal Basic Education (UBE) between 2020 and 2023.

The commission said only 16 states- Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Enugu, Jigawa, Kano, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Ondo, Osun, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba and Zamfara- have so far accessed the 2023 matching grant, representing 41 per cent of the appropriated N51.6 billion.

The federal government appropriated N51.6 billion in 2023 as a matching grant to states for the development of basic education, but as of June 30, only N21 billion was accessed by the 16 states despite the deplorable state of infrastructure in most primary schools across the country.