From zero in 2007, the ActionAid Nigeria (AAN) says it has facilitated the enrolment of over 2,538 girl children from 10 communities in Ngaski and Augie Local Government Areas of Kebbi state into schools in 2021, fourteen years after.

Sani Muhammad-Ibrahim, partnership and local rights programme manager of AAN, stated this on Friday at a one-day validation event on local rights programme impact assessment, in partnership with Active Support for Rural People Initiative (ASURPI) in Birnin Kebbi.

“We have been in 10 communities of Ngaski and Augie local government areas since 2007, precisely 14 years now. As a result of our intervention, we have sensitised the parents on the importance of education, water issues, sanitation, women rights, especially girl child, among others.

“We see how the number of children in those communities of Ngaski and Augie LGAs witnessed growth of enrolment of the girl child from almost zero in 2007 to 596 in 2009 and 1,942 in 2018,” Mr Muhammad-Ibrahim said.

The enrollment included the boy child. “As for the boys, we witnessed increased enrolment of boy pupils from 1,389 in 2009 to 1,942 in 2018. We have achieved in those local government areas an unimaginable enrollment as we have now over 4,138 boys and 2,538 girls in primary schools in those communities,” Mr Muhammad-Ibrahim said.

He also said that the meeting aimed to evaluate the impact on local rights programmes (LRP) in all the sectoral interventions around education, water, sanitation, women rights and other issues around communities in the state.

“People are being sensitised and empowered on issues around their rights. We want to see how we are able to shift power to the hands of the people in rural communities so that they can be enabled to ask government to provide the basic services to their communities.

Mr Muhammad-Ibrahim said AAN worked with the state assembly to push its cause, urging the state government to ensure that issues relating to rural communities were captured in the state budget to sustain its achievements after the NGO would have round-off activities in 2022.

“We are also able to push for women’s participation in the political space. There are some kinds of affirmative actions around major political parties in the state now to give some key positions to women because the more you get women to participate, the more peaceful and developed a society you will have,” Mr Muhammad-Ibrahim said.