A former minister of Youths Development and commissioner for education in Kwara State, Bolaji Abdullahi has decried the poor educational state in the north of the country saying that nine out of ten (91 per cent) school children in Sokoto cannot read in any language at all.

Abudullahi stated this at a lecture organised by Core Values Committee of the Northern Reawaking Group in Abuja yesterday, adding that the situation in Sokoto is only emblematic of the general state of education in northern Nigeria.

He said "today's northern Nigeria wears its ugliness like some kind of tribal mark from Adamawa to Zamfara and from Kano to Kwara. Poverty is a general Nigerian condition but in the north, it speaks with debilitating accent that is peculiarly northern, displaying some of the worst human development indicators in the world."

The former minister opined that the challenge of our educational system today is not just about getting children into school, rather the need for purposeful education.

"It is quiet disconcerting when you hear our government flaunt the creation of more universities as achievement. What is the sense of building more universities where the majority of the children cannot read or do single-digit arithmetic?" he asked.

He advocated a shift to skill-based education in areas like agriculture, construction, ICT, creative industry and sports. If the biggest challenge faced by our country is youth unemployment, it is there logical to expect that skills and training that we give to young people should prepare them to function effectively in these sectors."

He explained that "merely multiplying admission spaces for higher education without tackling the rot in basic and secondary education is like installing air conditioners in a mud house."

Earlier in his address, the chairman of the group, Mohammed Umara Kumalia said that it is because of the many challenges bedeviling the north that the Northern Reawaking Forum was birthed three years ago.

"We do not want to put the blame on government alone. We want to contribute to the reawaking of the region as individuals no matter how small. We want to support existing initiatives towards ameliorating the problems of the north," he added.