Going by the commitment given by the Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Arc. Sonny Echono, Zamfara State tertiary education will soon receive desired attention by way of interventions.

The assurance was given recently when the state governor,Dauda Lawal, paid a visit on TETFund boss to seek necessary assistance towards boosting education at all levels in his state as a way of fulfillinghis campaign promise to strengthen the state’s education standard.

The governor had promised his people that if voted into office, he would pay attention to education, which he said, has been in dire need of interventions. And soon after he was sworn in, the governor kick-started efforts at identifying the challenges confronting the sector with a view to tackling them headlong.

He also promised to address the problem of general apathy to education byattempting to change parents’ mindset through enlightenmenton the relevance of education. This approach, he believed, willmotivate them to allow their children access education.

For tertiary education however, the governor expressed concern over the state’s abilityto meet up with the financial demands. Consequently, he approachedTETFundfor necessary interventions. While commending the ES and his team for the glaring interventions in beneficiary institutions across the country, the governor expressed optimism that the Fund can still do better.

Lawal said: “I know you are doing very well but you can do better. We will keep coming to you, asking for more. I know you have the record and statistics of what is obtainable in Zamfara State and we want you to do more. I pray that before we leave here, you will make some commitments that I can take back to the people of Zamfara.

“We have outlined some of the areas we need your intervention, which I will hand over to you but beyond that, there are things we don’t know but I am sure you will be able to let us have some out of those hidden ones.

“This is the whole essence of this my trip to TETFund. It is the first actually but be rest assured that I would be coming; I will keep knocking on your door until we get what we want from TETFund.”

Responding, the Executive Secretarycommended the governor’s commitment towards the development of human capital in his state, which he said, will amount to creating opportunities for the people to realise their potential.

Echonothen assured his guest that the Fund would do everything possible within its power to help him achieve his desire to boost education in Zamfara State.

Describing the state asresourceful and very rich in potential, ­ EchonopledgedTETFund’s interventions to enable it harness its potential.

He said: “You described Zamfara as a small state but you also know that it is a very highly resource-rich state. Perhaps, even the insurgency and insecurity we are witnessing may have been driven by the fact that it is a very rich potential state. So, we will do whatever we can as a country to halt that slide and harness fully, those potential.So, it is strategically important that we focus on Zamfara State because that is where the potential is.

“As His Excellency said, we do have a number of institutions, both federal and state in Zamfara, and the number one challenge they face over the years is the issue of insecurity. So, we did make some plans for most of the institutions because under our intervention this year,we made provision for security intervention and we fully harnessed the requests from the institutions. Infact, we started with one of them but we have about three that we believe we would be able to do something about in the next couple of weeks, and also make allocations in that regard.

“Most importantly, I am aware His Excellency has a shopping list; we will also make other interventions based on the approved guideline that we already have. We assure you that Zamfara is right on our mind. We know that commitment counts in Zamfara, and we also know that the commitment has been coming.

“We will equally like to thank the former governor of the state because even some of the gentlemen of the press can recall that some years back, Zamfara used to be the least on the list of candidates that seat for Common Entrance examination and WASC but we have seen much improvement over the years. I have more confidence in you that our desire will work and we will get more for our people prepared to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them.”