Students left to seat on floor with chairs locked away

For long, students of Hafsat Ahmadu Bello Memorial Secondary School, Sokoto, have had to endure learning in the most uncomfortable way.

Only a few classes in the school have enough seats to accommodate them. For long, they have to put up with taking lectures while seated on bare floor. Most use prayer mats to protect their white tops from the floor’s dust, while other come to classes with extra wrappers to spray on floor as they sit.

While they have to put up with the most uncomfortable situation to take lectures daily, a few blocks away, 200 sets of classroom furniture were locked away, unattended to, and left to rot away.

But their suffering came to an end last week when the committee set up by Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal to implement the state of emergency declared in education visited the school.

The visit was facilitated by the need to individually assess problems of various schools and make recommendations to government on how best to address them.

“Upon visiting the Hafsat Ahmadu Bello Memorial Secondary School, Sokoto, students were seen taking lectures while sitting on the floor. To our amazement, a few blocks away, 200 new classroom furniture were locked away unattended to. We immediately ordered that the furniture be arranged in the classes in need, and the school management was admonished to always prioritise the need of the students at all times,” said Dr. Shadi Sabeh, who led members of the School Needs Assessment sub-committee during the visit. 

“So while the government has provided facilities, the school management will decide not to utilize them. The school managers must key into the new vision for better schools or all our efforts will be in vain,” he added.

The joy of the kids could not be contained as they took the lead in arranging the chairs in their classes by themselves.

More photos below...