Sokoto State government has boasted that its performance in the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is better than that of the federal government.
Tambuwal disclosed this while receiving the outgoing United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, Nigeria representative, Mr Peter Hawkins and his team, adding that his administration is committed to meeting all of its obligations with the UN agency.
“We are doing more on the SDGs than the Federal Government. The Federal Government is slowing down seriously on the implementation of the SDGs. We have not, for long, received any support or counterpart funding from the Federal Government on the SDGs.
“I believe for almost four years now; we have not received anything. But our SDG office has been functioning here in Sokoto. Year in, year out, we get some resources for them to continue with the implementation of those programmes,” the governor explained.
Governor Tambuwal was responding to issues of recent drawbacks in the settlement of counterpart funding by the state on many issues regarding girl-child education, gender issues, healthcare, malnutrition and enrollment of out of school children.
“We are committed to all of these. In the past we have performed our obligations fully and we shall continue to do that,” he assured.
He expressed appreciation to UNICEF for its support, especially on the government’s efforts towards repositioning the almajiri system.
“You have given us some technical support and we look forward to more in that direction so that these vulnerable out of school children can go back to school for a more structured learning process; both the spiritual and indeed what we call Western education here.
“We are very committed to ensuring that we continue with our strides in taking these children back to school. They are our children and we are very concerned about their future”.
We are also very concerned about what they may become should they fail to get the appropriate attention of parents, government and society,” he added.
He pledged to do more on the modest achievement recorded in immunization and said that the state government has for long identified the need to have more human resources.
In his remarks, the outgoing UNICEF country representative, Mr Hawkins, while congratulating the Tambuwal administration for domesticating the Child Rights Act, made strong case for social protection of children, especially those in the almajiri system, the spotlight initiative, upgrading of the primary healthcare system, SDGs and other issues like malnutrition.
