By Maroof Asudemade
There is something fundamentally wrong with the way the Makinde administration is presenting the latest BESDA-AF-TESS intervention in Oyo State.
The government has celebrated the distribution of 72,000 notebooks across the state’s 33 local government areas, describing the exercise as an intervention under the World Bank-supported Better Education Service Delivery for All, BESDA-AF-TESS.
But before Governor Seyi Makinde takes another political bow over exercise books, he should answer a much more important question. What exactly was BESDA money given to Oyo State to achieve?
BESDA means Better Education Service Delivery for All. It was a World Bank-supported Federal Government programme whose principal development objective was to increase equitable access to basic education for out-of-school children, improve literacy and strengthen accountability for results.
Oyo was not selected because the state needed a government-wide exercise-book distribution programme. It was selected because of its out-of-school-child crisis.
At the commencement of BESDA in Oyo, the state identified approximately 272,847 out-of-school children as potential beneficiaries. The state explicitly stated that the programme was designed to increase access for out-of-school children, improve literacy and retain children in school.
Even more specifically, Oyo announced that the initial BESDA grant would target 170,536 out-of-school children in 23 local government areas, including 62,733 hawkers and 107,803 Almajiris. The stated objective was to take these children off the streets, enrol them in school and retain them there. The state even declared an intention to return the targeted children to school before 2022.
Oyo was initially allocated US$3 million to commence the intervention. So the central test of BESDA should never have been the number of notebooks distributed. It should have been the number of children rescued from educational exclusion. And that is where the Makinde administration owes Oyo people a much more convincing account.
It is apt to ask Oyo State Government led by Seyi Makinde: where are the children? The World Bank’s assessment of the original BESDA programme is revealing. For Oyo, the World Bank’s subsequent evaluation found that although the number of children in school increased, the increase was essentially equivalent to the growth in the school-age population. It therefore found no reduction in the overall number of out-of-school children in Oyo between the 2015 and 2020 survey benchmarks.
That is a devastating statistic when considered against the original purpose of BESDA. The government has subsequently reported progress, including tens of thousands of children returned to classrooms. But in March 2026, stakeholders were still citing approximately 674,324 children aged 3–17 as being out of school in Oyo State; that is about 20.1 percent of that population.
Therefore, after years of BESDA intervention, the fundamental question remains. How many children has Oyo actually taken off the streets and permanently returned to school? BESDA is not concerned about how many notebooks were distributed, and how many motorcycles were purchased.
The audited 2024 financial statements of Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board recorded ₦9.504 billion under the World Bank BESDA-AF-TESS fund.
As at December 31, 2024, ₦4.401 billion was said to have been spent on selected-school interventions, leaving a reported balance of approximately ₦5.103 billion. The Makinde administration should therefore publish a complete account of what happened to that balance after 2024.
And now we have another expenditure being presented under BESDA-AF-TESS: 72,000 notebooks. The question is unavoidable: How much was spent on those notebooks? Who supplied them? What was the unit cost? What procurement procedure was followed? What BESDA-AF-TESS activity or approved result area does the expenditure belong to? And, most importantly, how does the expenditure contribute to the programme’s principal objective of reducing the population of out-of-school children?
The government cannot simply attach the BESDA-AF-TESS label to an expenditure and expect citizens to accept it without scrutiny. The World Bank’s programme documents identify specific result areas, including reduction of out-of-school children, improvement of literacy and strengthening accountability for results.
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If the notebook purchase is an approved and eligible intervention under the programme, let the government publish the documentation and let Oyo people see the connection. If it is not, then the government has a serious accountability problem.
Governor Makinde cannot have it both ways. He cannot ask Oyo people to judge BESDA by the number of notebooks distributed while ignoring the number of children who remain outside school. He also cannot showcase a relatively small physical intervention while leaving unanswered questions about billions of naira in programme funds.
And he cannot claim success merely because some children have returned to classrooms when the state still has an enormous out-of-school population.
The World Bank itself has continued to structure BESDA-AF-TESS around measurable results. Its recent programme documentation shows that the intervention remains focused on equitable access, literacy and accountability, with Oyo, Adamawa and Katsina as beneficiary states. That is the standard Oyo is expected to meet.
Governor Makinde should publish: the total BESDA and BESDA-AF-TESS funds received by Oyo; every expenditure made from those funds; the balance remaining; the cost and procurement details of the 72,000 notebooks; the number of out-of-school children identified; the number enrolled; the number retained; the current verified out-of-school population; and the measurable reduction achieved since BESDA commenced.
This is not an unreasonable demand. It is accountability for money provided specifically to solve a clearly identified social crisis. BESDA was about children, and not about stationery!
If the Makinde administration has truly delivered on the programme, it should have no difficulty producing the figures. If it has not, then 72,000 exercise books cannot substitute for the hundreds of thousands of children who are still waiting for the education that BESDA was created to provide.
The real question is not how many notebooks Governor Makinde has distributed. The real question is how many children Oyo State has brought back to school, and what happened to the billions entrusted to the state to make that happen.
