MANY NIGERIANS ARE ILLITERATES DUE TO GOVERNMENTS INACTIONS- commission.

Mr Jibrin Paiko, the Executive Secretary National
Commission for Mass Literacy Education, Adult and
Non-Formal Education, says lack of political will is the
major reason for high level of illiteracy in Nigeria.
Paiko said this on Tuesday in Abuja at the roundtable
discussion organised by a non-governmental
organization, Noble Mission for Change Initiative, in
commemoration of the International Literacy Day.
“Lack of political will particularly, at the state and local
government levels, is the major contributing factor to
the high level of illiteracy in Nigeria.
“At the national level, we have a lot of policy
documents in place, and most of them were developed
with the support of development partners and
distributed to the states.
“The issue is, we need political support and will at
state level to key in but we need the government to key
in.”
Paiko said that only 101 million Nigerians were literate,
adding that Nigeria had all the necessary structure to
boost the level of literacy in the country.
He added that the mandate of the commission was to
create the enabling environment while the government
would implement.
Paiko solicited the collaboration and funding support of
states and local governments to develop education in
Nigeria.
In her remarks, Mrs Nemi Okujagu, the Technical
Adviser to the Statistician-General of the Federation,
National Bureau of Statistics, said poverty was another
cause of illiteracy.
Okujagu said a recent literacy survey in Nigeria showed
that 90 per cent of the country’s citizens were poor,
adding that two-thirds of global illiterate population
were women.
She defined literacy as the ability to read and write in
any language, adding that the survey was done by
random collection of data from households across the
country.
In his presentation, Dr Saidou Jallow, Senior
Programme Specialist, UNESCO, advised governments
to recruit and provide adequate remuneration to literate
teachers to boost literacy level in the country.
Jallow said that government at all levels should also
facilitate the establishment and operationalisation of
ambassadors for adult literacy and non-formal
education.
He noted that the bulk of illiterate Nigerians were
domiciled in the northern part of the country and urged
stakeholders to channel their efforts and resources to
the area.
(NAN)