Nigeria’s out-of-school children crisis has reached a breaking point. The National Commission for Almajiri and Out-of-School Children’s Education received ₦22.4 billion in the 2025 and 2026 budgets. Yet ₦8.4 billion of that sum was earmarked for road construction, ambulances, and solar streetlights—projects unrelated to education. The diversion exposes a systemic failure in governance that prioritises political expediency over the futures of 20 million children.
The commission’s mandate is clear: reduce the number of Almajiri and out-of-school children through profiling, learning centres, and expanded access to education. Instead, it has become a vehicle for constituency projects inserted by lawmakers. The commission’s spokesperson, Nura Muhammad, confirmed the projects were assigned through the Appropriation Act. This admission does not absolve the National Assembly. It confirms a budgeting process that treats education agencies as piggy banks for political favours. Roads belong in the Ministry of Works. Ambulances belong in the Ministry of Health. When these projects are dumped into education budgets, they distort priorities and deepen institutional drift.
The consequences are measurable. Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world. UNICEF estimates 18.5 million children are excluded from formal education. Almajiri children account for a significant portion of this figure. Every naira diverted from their classrooms is a naira that could have trained a teacher, built a learning centre, or provided textbooks. The IA-Foundation, a non-profit focused on education access, warned that the diversion threatens to reverse fragile gains. The foundation’s CEO, Ibironke Adeagbo, stated that every shortfall in the Almajiri budget translates into another child remaining out of school for another year. Her warning is not hyperbole. It is arithmetic.
The budget anomaly is not an isolated incident. It reflects a pattern of institutional distortion that has plagued Nigeria’s public finance for decades. In 2018, the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology was allocated funds for mosque construction. In 2020, the Ministry of Women Affairs was assigned road rehabilitation projects. These examples are not administrative quirks. They are symptoms of a broken budgeting culture that scatters public funds across unrelated agencies to satisfy political interests. The practice weakens accountability. When an agency’s performance is judged by roads built rather than children educated, the entire governance framework becomes unmoored from its purpose.
The National Assembly bears direct responsibility for this crisis. Lawmakers insert constituency projects into budgets without regard for institutional mandates. These projects are not subject to competitive bidding or needs assessment. They are political allocations designed to reward loyalty and secure re-election. The Senate and House of Representatives have the power to reform this process. They could mandate that constituency projects be assigned only to agencies with relevant expertise. They could require public justification for every project. They could enforce transparency in expenditure reports. Instead, they choose to perpetuate a system that treats public funds as patronage.
A deeper structural flaw underlies this dysfunction. The Federal Government shoulders the burden of Almajiri education despite the crisis being concentrated in northern states. Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, and Sokoto account for over 60% of out-of-school children. Yet these states contribute minimally to the commission’s budget. The Federal Government’s dominance in funding creates a moral hazard. State governments have little incentive to invest in education when they can rely on federal bailouts. This dynamic perpetuates dependency and undermines local ownership. The commission’s recent profiling of 700,000 children and establishment of 119 learning centres are commendable. But these efforts are unsustainable without state-level commitment. The Federal Government must tie funding to state contributions. It must enforce performance benchmarks. It must hold governors accountable for education outcomes.
The diversion of Almajiri funds also reveals a disconnect between policy and reality. The Universal Basic Education Commission recently released ₦100 billion in matching grants to states. These funds are being used to construct classrooms, provide furniture, and train teachers. The contrast with the Almajiri Commission’s budget is stark. While UBEC invests in education infrastructure, the Almajiri Commission is saddled with road projects. This inconsistency undermines public trust. It sends a message that the Federal Government’s commitment to education is conditional on political calculations rather than national need. The Ministry of Education must intervene. It must ensure that the Almajiri Commission’s budget is ring-fenced for education-related interventions. It must demand that the National Assembly cease the practice of routing constituency projects through education agencies.
The human cost of this budgetary mismanagement is incalculable. Every child denied education is a future denied. The World Bank estimates that Nigeria loses $10 billion annually in potential earnings due to out-of-school children. The Almajiri crisis is not just an education problem. It is an economic time bomb. Children who grow up without skills become adults dependent on the state. They are more vulnerable to radicalisation, crime, and poverty. The ₦8.4 billion diverted to roads could have built 420 learning centres. It could have trained 8,400 teachers. It could have provided school meals for 200,000 children. These are not abstract numbers. They are lives that could have been transformed.
The solution requires political will. The National Assembly must reform the budgeting process to align projects with agency mandates. The Federal Government must enforce state-level accountability for education funding. Civil society must sustain pressure on policymakers to prioritise children over politics. The IA-Foundation has called for detailed expenditure reports and strengthened oversight. These demands are reasonable. They are the minimum required to restore integrity to the budgeting process. Nigeria cannot afford to treat the education of its most vulnerable children as negotiable. The time for excuses is over. The time for action is now.
