Reported by Marian Opeyemi Fasesan, Editor-in-chief | Journalist at Sele Media Africa.
DUTSE, Nigeria — Hundreds of pupils in Jigawa State continue to learn in unsafe classrooms as parents and education stakeholders accuse the state government of failing to fix decaying school infrastructure. The Jigawa schools crisis has sharpened scrutiny of Governor Umar Namadi’s education record, even as officials promise reform.
Children now sit in buildings with cracked walls, leaking roofs and collapsing structures, according to local reporting and stakeholder accounts. Community leaders say the condition puts pupils at risk and undermines learning across public schools in the state. (dailytrust.com)
Pupils Learn Under Threat
Jigawa’s public-school system has long faced pressure from overcrowding, poverty and weak maintenance. The new wave of concern now centres on whether the state can stop schools from sliding further into dangerous disrepair.
Daily Trust has reported for years that classrooms in parts of Jigawa have deteriorated badly, with some pupils forced to study outside or in buildings judged unsafe by residents and school officials. That pattern points to a structural problem, not a one-off failure. (dailytrust.com)
The concern matters because primary education in northern Nigeria already carries some of the country’s deepest access and quality gaps. When classrooms collapse or become unusable, children do not merely lose comfort. They lose instructional time, stability and, in some cases, basic safety. (dailytrust.com)
What Stakeholders Say
Education stakeholders in Jigawa have warned that the state cannot meet its learning goals while children remain exposed to unsafe buildings. Their argument rests on a simple point: a school that cannot shelter pupils safely cannot deliver reliable education.
Governor Umar Namadi has repeatedly promised education reform. Premium Times reported in February 2026 that he told Tsangaya school teachers his administration intended to modernise almajiri education without undermining its religious and cultural foundations. In the same period, he also said Jigawa hosts more than 4,000 Tsangaya schools and more than 1.3 million pupils. (premiumtimesng.com)
Daily Trust also reported last month that Namadi said his administration wanted pupils to have adequate water, sanitation and hygiene facilities so they could “thrive.” That pledge now faces a harder test: whether the state can protect children already studying in unsafe conditions. (dailytrust.com)
The Gap Between Pledges And Reality
The problem in Jigawa does not end with rhetoric. Premium Times reported that the state budget for 2026 set aside about ₦236 billion for the social sector, which includes education and health, and said the government spent more than ₦8.9 billion in 2025 on school renovations, fences and learning materials. (premiumtimesng.com)
Those figures show that the state has recognised the scale of the problem. They also raise a sharper question: why do children still study in unsafe classrooms if the money exists on paper and the government says it has made education a priority? That gap now defines the crisis. (premiumtimesng.com)
Premium Times also reported that Namadi’s two-year scorecard highlighted infrastructure, teacher recruitment and efforts to improve learning outcomes. Yet the reports from the field suggest that the public-school experience in many communities has changed far more slowly than official speeches imply. (premiumtimesng.com)
Why The Schools Fail
The core issue is maintenance. Schools do not usually collapse in one moment. They decay slowly when authorities delay repairs, communities lack leverage and intervention funds arrive too late or too unevenly.
Daily Trust’s reporting from Jigawa and wider northern Nigeria has repeatedly described the same pattern: broken roofs, cracked classrooms, children sitting on bare floors and teachers improvising under hardship. In some cases, schools remain neglected for years despite repeated requests from communities. (dailytrust.com)
That pattern carries a wider policy lesson for Nigeria. Education ministries often announce capital projects, but pupils feel the consequences only when a roof leaks or a wall falls. The visible failure then becomes a daily emergency for children and parents, not a budget line. (premiumtimesng.com)
Safety, Learning And Accountability
Unsafe classrooms create more than discomfort. They can discourage attendance, weaken concentration and deepen dropout risks, especially for girls and younger pupils. In a state already wrestling with access challenges, every damaged classroom can become a barrier to school participation.
The accountability question now falls directly on the Jigawa State Government, the State Universal Basic Education Board and local education authorities. Residents and school communities want a clear repair timeline, public disclosure of project sites and proof that allocations turn into actual classrooms, not announcements. (premiumtimesng.com)
If state officials want public confidence, they will need to show where the money went, which schools received repairs and how many dangerous structures remain in use. Without that transparency, the crisis will keep widening between policy promises and classroom reality. This story remains developing, and Sele Media Africa could not independently verify every school cited in community complaints from the raw field notes provided.
Why This Matters For West Africa
Jigawa’s classroom crisis matters beyond one Nigerian state because it reflects a broader West African problem: governments often expand education access faster than they maintain school infrastructure. Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone all face pressure to improve learning outcomes while coping with ageing public facilities, overcrowding and uneven funding. (premiumtimesng.com)
For Nigeria, the lesson is especially urgent. If a state with repeated education pledges cannot keep basic classrooms safe, then federal and state reforms across the country face a credibility problem. That matters for continental goals on literacy, girls’ education and human capital development, particularly in the Sahel and the wider West African sub-region. (premiumtimesng.com)
The next test will come in the form of inspections, repairs and public reporting. Parents, teachers and local communities will watch whether Jigawa converts its education commitments into safe learning spaces before the next school term deepens the damage. For Nigeria and other African states facing similar neglect, the outcome will signal whether public education can still function as a public good rather than a collapsing promise.
Sources:
- Daily Trust, reporting on dilapidated schools and unsafe classrooms in Jigawa and northern Nigeria, 2012-2026
- Premium Times, coverage of Governor Umar Namadi’s education reforms, budget priorities and Tsangaya policy, January-March 2026
- BusinessDay Nigeria, education and infrastructure coverage relevant to public-school conditions, 2024-2025
