One, two or all three of these girls, Nafisa Abdullahi, Hadiza Kashim Kalli and Rukayya Mohammed Fema stand a better chance than Donald Trump of one day getting the Nobel Prize. Unlike him, they never lobbied or clamoured for honours. Since last year, there has been puzzle and wonder in many Nigerian hearts that these girls, who emerged Champions at the TeenEagle 2025 Champions in London, beating 20,000 other contestants from 69 countries, were not celebrated by Federal authorities as true Nigerian heroes. Some even said Nigeria honours football and Guinness cooking entries more than education.
If the Feds won’t do it, Yobe State Government went out to honour its own. Last Thursday, January 29, alongside a ceremony in Damaturu to inaugurate the permanent site of Biomedical Research and Training Center (BioRTC), Governor Mai Mala Buni bestowed the three girls with lavish honours. He splashed them with ten million naira each, on top of a government scholarship up to tertiary level.
Their achievement was no accident. It was only a manifestation of Governor Buni’s vision of quality education, science, research and innovation as tools for Yobe State’s leap into the knowledge edge. He said, “We have taken deliberate and strategic measures to facilitate recovery of education [from insurgency-induced ravage], enhance research and promote innovation as we aspire to be part of, and represented in the global knowledge production with a little emphasis on our peculiarities.”
In pursuit of this vision, Buni’s Administration increased budgetary allocation to the education sector and invested over N800 million to construct the permanent site of BioRTC. Other futuristic investments in education, Buni said, include the reconstruction of 300 schools destroyed by Boko Haram insurgents, establishing 13 Mega and Model schools and eight Government Girls Senior Secondary Schools across the state to improve girl-child education. He also listed the employing of over 7,000 qualified teachers, procurement and distribution of text books, laboratory equipment and other instructional materials to boost education across the state.
That’s not all. YBSG under Buni also pays N2.6 billion annual scholarships for 890 students at Nigeria Tulip International College, the golden girls Nafisa, Rukayya and Hadiza being among the beneficiaries. YBSG under Buni also continues to pay N5.6 billion annually in WAEC, NECO and NABTEC examination fees for all students in public schools. It also spends N5.3 billion annually on school feeding. Together, these programmes improved the performance of Yobe students with excellent grades in external examinations, and qualified them to gain admission into tertiary institutions.
Buni is not yet done. Under him, there are 40,000 Yobe State students studying various courses in Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges of Education and other tertiary institutions in Nigeria and around the globe on government sponsorships. In recent years alone, YBSG sponsored 400 students to study various courses in Indian universities. Upon successful completion of their courses, some of them were employed and deployed to health facilities to improve healthcare services across the state. Since 2019, Yobe State University alone produced 106 First Class graduates in multiple disciplines. Federal Ministry of Education even designated Yobe State as a role model in foundational education, describing it as exemplary and worthy of emulation.
At the ceremony in Damaturu, Governor Buni said “under this administration, no child in Yobe state will be denied his or her right to education because of his or her economic background. Basic and secondary education remains totally free, while tertiary education is highly subsidized with the lowest registration fees to make education affordable and accessible to everyone in the state.” Waxing lyrical, Buni also said Yobe State has talents in digital technology, software and smart systems, drone technology, automated irrigation, solar power fabrication, locally Fabricated Mobile Phone, Battery-Powered Water Pump, Solar Hot Plate, Rechargeable Battery-Powered generator, Wireless Charging System and Smart Office Assistant Robots.
The three golden Yobe girls did not fall from the sky. They sprang out of a careful, dedicated and visionary policy that makes education the cornerstone of the state’s development.
