ReportsNG
The National Commission for Mass Literacy, Basic and Non-Formal Education was established to carry the light of learning to millions of Nigerian adults and out-of-school youth who have been left behind. But a Federal Government review of the Commission’s 2024 financial year has uncovered ₦460,796,020.09 in irregularities spread across eleven separate findings, including a construction project built on land the Commission never legally secured.
At the heart of the findings is ₦69,883,305.70 spent on construction works carried out without a land title. In plain terms, the Commission built infrastructure on ground it had no documented legal claim to a risk that could swallow the entire investment if ownership is ever contested. Another ₦72,659,682.12 sits as non-retired cash advances, while ₦69,408,035.90 in paid vouchers were never presented for examination.
The review further found that ₦49,853,125.00 was paid for a contract that was not fully executed, and ₦44,292,141.68 involved irregularities in the award of contracts. A sum of ₦34,010,000.00 was paid for store items with no evidence of delivery, while ₦29,095,752.18 was an unjustified payment of a provisional sum. Another ₦27,594,365.50 was misapplied outright, ₦26,452,857.50 was spent outside the approved budget, ₦18,818,002.38 in taxes went unremitted, and ₦18,728,752.13 was paid for jobs and contracts that were never executed.
Professor Simon Ibor Akpama has served as Executive Secretary of the Commission since September 2021, spanning the entire audited 2024 year and continuing in the role today. As the Commission’s chief executive and accounting officer, responsibility for a construction project built without secured land title and for the remaining ten findings rests with his administration.
For an institution whose core mission is expanding access to basic education for Nigeria’s most educationally underserved adults, building its own infrastructure on legally uncertain ground is a troubling contradiction. A literacy centre constructed without title to the land beneath it is an investment that could be lost entirely in a land dispute, money and effort that would then have delivered nothing to the communities it was meant to serve.
The laws broken here are specific. Land use and property acquisition regulations require documented title before any public construction proceeds violated outright by the ₦69.88 million in construction on untitled land. The Financial Regulations 2009 require prompt retirement of every cash advance violated by the ₦72.66 million left unretired. The same regulations prohibit payment for goods and contracts not delivered or executed violated by a combined ₦102.6 million across three separate findings. And Nigeria’s tax remittance obligations were breached by ₦18.82 million in unremitted taxes.
