By Richard Duke
Introduction
Basic education in Nigeria continues to reflect a persistent paradox. While significant public funding exists at the federal level, conditions at the school level remain structurally inadequate.
Recent judicial developments have renewed attention on how basic education is financed and delivered. A central question has emerged: whether Local Government Authorities should have more direct access to funds administered through national education financing mechanisms.
In a landmark judgment delivered on 9 October 2025, the Federal High Court affirmed that the right to free, compulsory, and universal basic education is enforceable and justiciable. This places a binding obligation on all tiers of government to ensure delivery (Federal High Court, 2025). The court also clarified an important distinction: access to federal matching grants is discretionary, but the duty to provide education is not.
This reframes the debate. The issue is no longer access to funding alone, but whether funding translates into measurable outcomes.
A critical dimension of this challenge is the availability of accessible, verifiable data on intervention projects and outcomes across Local Government Areas.
Despite sustained federal investment, education outcomes remain uneven across states and districts (UBEC, 2022; World Bank, 2023). The problem is no longer one of policy intent. It is a matter of institutional performance.
This paper addresses that gap using field-based evidence from Cross River State, with a focus on the Southern Senatorial District.
Mediation vs Delivery
It is often argued that Local Government Authorities already access education funding through State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) structures. While this is technically correct, it reflects passive access rather than operational control over how resources are deployed.
Under the current framework, funds are disbursed through state-level bodies such as the Cross River State Universal Basic Education Board. Allocation priorities, timelines, and project selection are determined centrally.
Local Government Education Authorities function largely as implementing bodies, with limited financial autonomy. Their role is to execute decisions made elsewhere, rather than respond directly to conditions on the ground.
This arrangement is consistent with the Universal Basic Education Act 2004. However, it creates a system in which decision-making is structurally distant from need.
The consequences are predictable: delayed interventions, weak responsiveness to urgent repairs, and limited flexibility at the local level. Over time, these constraints accumulate into the infrastructure deficits observed across many public primary schools.
In effect, the system is optimised for administrative control rather than service delivery.
Evidence from Cross River South
Field assessments conducted through the Efik Leadership Foundation’s Adopt-a-School initiative provide sustained school-level evidence from the Southern Senatorial District. The initiative has operated continuously since 2018.
Over a seven-year period, more than 50 primary schools have been assessed across five Local Government Areas. The methodology has involved N-Power staff, trained volunteers, and independent assessors, representing one of the most consistent civil society-led monitoring efforts in Cross River State.
The findings are strikingly consistent across locations and over time. Classrooms are dilapidated. Roofs are leaking. Teaching materials are insufficient. Sanitation facilities are inadequate. The distribution of intervention projects appears uneven and, in a number of cases, raises questions around transparency.
Direct observations from schools such as St Oliver’s Primary School in Eki, St Christopher’s Primary School in Ikot Umo Edem, Duke Town Primary School in Calabar, and Sacred Heart Primary School in Calabar, among others, illustrate this pattern clearly. In each case, intervention flows have not translated into timely or sufficient improvements at the school level.
The delivery model explains this outcome. It operates through periodic, centrally controlled intervention cycles. By the time support reaches a school, minor issues such as roof leaks often escalate into structural damage.
This is not simply a funding constraint. It is a responsiveness failure. Those who identify problems are not the ones who control resources.
Across more than 50 schools and multiple assessment cycles, this gap remains consistent, measurable, and widening.
Why the Reform Debate Matters
The debate must move beyond whether Local Government Authorities receive funds in some form. The central question is whether the system delivers timely, needs-based, and accountable outcomes.
The October 2025 Federal High Court judgment sharpens this issue. While the court affirmed that access to federal matching grants is conditional, it also made clear that the obligation to provide basic education is absolute.
The implication is straightforward. A state may choose not to access federal funding, but it must still demonstrate that it is delivering educational outcomes through alternative means.
Funding structures are instruments of delivery, not substitutes for it. Where those structures are not producing results, their continued use cannot be justified on legal grounds alone.
The evidence from Cross River South indicates a sustained gap between formal compliance and actual delivery. The system may be lawful, but it is not delivering effective outcomes.
Global evidence supports the case for reform. Decentralised financing can improve responsiveness and reduce infrastructure deficits, but only where accountability systems are sufficiently robust to prevent misuse and ensure equitable allocation (World Bank, 2020; UNESCO, 2021).
Risks of Unstructured Decentralisation
Any reform effort must address risk directly. Nigeria’s experience offers two clear lessons.
First, independent reviews of the UBEC matching grant system have identified recurring weaknesses at state level, including procurement irregularities, weak financial controls, and poor alignment between approved projects and actual needs. These findings are consistent with broader public financial management assessments across Africa (CABRI, 2017).
Second, Nigeria’s Fadama III agricultural programme demonstrates that while decentralised resource control can improve targeting, it can also enable elite capture where accountability systems are weak (World Bank, 2016).
These lessons translate directly to education financing. Proximity to communities does not automatically produce equity. Without independent verification mechanisms, local control can reinforce existing power structures rather than correct them.
In Cross River State, the risks are specific. Financial management capacity varies across Local Government Education Authorities. Some lack the technical capability to manage conditional grants or produce auditable accounts.
Political influence over project selection is a known feature of local governance systems. Fragmented planning also risks duplication, inconsistent standards, and poor data consolidation.
These risks do not argue against decentralisation. They define the conditions under which it must be designed.
What Reform Must Look Like
The analysis points to a delivery-focused reform agenda.
First, reform must begin with data. A comprehensive, independently verified school-level needs assessment is required, building on existing datasets such as the Efik Leadership Foundation’s Adopt-a-School initiative. This would establish a public baseline against which all interventions can be measured.
Second, access to education funding at Local Government level should be conditional on verified need and accompanied by mandatory quarterly reporting on fund utilisation and project status.
Third, SUBEB should retain a technical coordination and quality assurance role. This ensures that local responsiveness does not undermine planning coherence or infrastructure standards across the state.
Fourth, civil society organisations engaged in school monitoring should be formally integrated into the verification framework. This would strengthen transparency, improve data credibility, and enhance community trust.
Finally, funding should be linked to performance. Local Government Authorities that demonstrate effective and accountable use of funds should be granted expanded responsibility. Those that do not should remain under closer supervision until minimum standards are met.
This is not a call for wholesale decentralisation. It is a call for a structured, accountable, and delivery-oriented redistribution of roles.
Direct access to funds is not an entitlement. It is a performance obligation.
Ultimately, the credibility of any reform will rest on a simple test:
Is the child in the classroom in Cross River State demonstrably better served than before?
🔲 References
Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI) (2017) Spending more or spending better: Improving education financing in Africa.
Federal High Court (2025) Judgment on universal basic education (9 October 2025, Hon. Justice D.E. Osiagor, Lagos).
Federal Republic of Nigeria (2004) Universal Basic Education Act.
UNESCO (2021) Global education monitoring report: Non-state actors in education.
Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) (2022) Annual report.
World Bank (2016) Fadama III project completion report.
World Bank (2020) Decentralisation and education service delivery.
World Bank (2023) Nigeria education sector analysis.
Richard Duke is the Executive Director of the Efik Leadership Foundation
