Governor of Zamfara state, Dauda Lawal, has appealed to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) for an increased intervention fund to the state to boost infrastructural development in some state-owned tertiary institutions.
Lawal made the appeal when he paid a courtesy visit on the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc Sonny Echono, in Abuja, on Thursday.
He said apart from the poor financial standing of Zamfara, the state of emergency he declared in education sector recently requires extensive funding support to succeed.
“Sometime in November, we declared emergency in education and that is why I’m here to continue to follow up wherever we can get help, so that things will be better in Zamfara,” he said.
The governor also sought the support of TETFund to complete some of the abandoned projects, especially at the State University, in order to expand access to University education in the state.
He underscored the urgency of addressing the pressing challenges within the state’s educational system, highlighting TETFund’s importance in that the respect.
On the security situation in the state, Lawal said security has become a major challenge in the state but assured that the government is on it.
Speaking, Echono assured that despite the security challenges in Zamfara, the fund is doing a lot to ensure that education continues in the state
“He (the Governor) came on appreciation visit, because we are doing a lot despite the security challenges in Zamfara. We want to make sure that education continues and to make sure that every part of this country, our students wherever they may be, have access to good quality education,” he said.
He said Zamfara like any other states is one of the beneficiaries of their High-Impact projects and the Governor’s request for the Fund to complete some already ongoing projects is because they are having funding challenges.
Echono added that some of the abandoned projects were initiated by successive governments and the Governor felt that rather than start new projects, if those ongoing projects are completed, it would be more beneficial to the state.
The TETFund boss, however, said the initial constraint in taking over such abandoned projects would be that TETFund would have to separate what is its project from the projects solely embarked upon by the state.
