Jigawa spent N24bn on education, water in 3 years – Badaru

Jigawa state government under Governor Muhammad Badaru Abubaakr has expended a whopping N9.8billion on the construction and upgrading of 4,520 classrooms in the last three years of his administration.
Governor Badaru disclosed this while addressing the people of the state to mark this year’s Democracy Day and his three years in office yesterday, in Dutse the state capital.
He added that 411 toilets cubicles, 6 administrative blocks, and 97,659 sets of pupils furniture, 188 staff quarters and four hostel blocks of teachers and 79 hand pumps, were also provided within the period.
According to him, secondary school decongestion initiative that will add 44 new schools was in progress with 26 completed across the state to reduce the pupil- classroom ratio and provide better learning environment, provision of critical infrastructure was also a top priority.
Badaru explained that education received unparalleled attention in the last three years where an education summit was convened in which an education change agenda that sought to start a reform from the primary level covering a 12 year period and well beyond the scope of two term tenure, was ushered.
“We began by paying off a backlog of two years’ contribution to the UBE scheme unlocking federal counter part funding for basic education,” he said.
On water supply, he said from 2015, “we have spent N11.2billion in the sector covering cities, small towns and rural areas converting 507 water schemes to solar power , providing 2, 237 new hand pumps, rehabilitating 4, 671 existing ones and improving the capacity of major water schemes in nine major cities.”