By Adam Alqali,

As the governors of the 19 northern states converge for their next meeting, a coalition of CSOs working in the northeast, the Northeast Education and Social Accountability Cluster, has urged the Northern Governors Forum to make the reconstruction of the Northeast, and more specifically its education sector, a key-point in its agenda of the meeting scheduled for the 29th April of 2016, in Kaduna.

This was contained in a statement made available to journalists in Kano on Thursday by the group.

“Although we are yet to see commeasure impact of their past meetings, because the decisions of the meetings were hardly implemented, we remain optimistic that the future ones will be different and that the Governors would come up with mechanisms that would ensure follow ups and implementation of these decisions,” said the statement.

“It is now clear that northern Nigeria is faced with multiple issues that need urgent attention, and that might be the reason why the Northern Governors Forum schedules to meet in Kaduna. The forum has been meeting in recent times, all in their efforts of making the North a better and stronger region.”

The statement said the civil society and other stakeholders were this time more committed to advocate for the implementation of progressive decisions taken by the Governors’ Forum as well as to continuously monitor and track the implementation of these decisions.

“It is our belief that without addressing the educational sector, not much would be achieved in the other sectors. We therefore wish to see the governors take a dispassionate look at the sector and come up with bold initiative that will readily result in concrete outcomes in revamping the education in the region,” said the statement.

The coalition which commended the commitment of the individual state governors in the Northeast towards improving the quality of education in their respective states added that they hoped other states in the region would emulate Bauchi state, by declaring state of emergency in the education sector.

“As they meet, we extend our solidarity and hands of fellowship to them and hope, that they will respond positively by providing hope to ordinary people who queued in the sun and gave them their votes in the believe that they  (the Governors) will address the existential conditions of the people,” concluded the statement.