ABUJA – The confusion started before mid­day, just after break time, when teachers at Kingsville Model Acad­emy in Kubwa received a forward­ed memo allegedly from the FCT Education Secretariat ordering the immediate closure of schools con­sidered “non-compliant with regu­latory standards”.....TAP TO CONTINUE READING

Within minutes, parents began trooping into the school compound, clutching versions of the same circular sent through WhatsApp groups, some bearing signatures of the department of quality assurance while others car­ried a slightly altered seal suggesting approval from the FCT Universal Basic Education Board (UBEB).

Teachers were stunned, administra­tors panicked, and pupils stared at the adults with questions no one was pre­pared to answer. By evening, the FCT administration had issued two contra­dictory clarifications, neither of which resolved the confusion.

Abuja had been thrown into yet another governance storm—one that exposed deep cracks in the capital’s ed­ucation administration.

“I have never seen anything as chaotic as this,” said Mrs. Rose­line Abiola, a parent whose two children attend Kingsville Model Academy. “I left my office in Wuse because another parent in our group chat posted a message say­ing the school was to shut down immediately, but when I arrived, the teachers were confused. They didn’t know which memo was au­thentic.”

Abiola was among dozens of parents interviewed across Kub­wa, Dutse, Kuje, Lugbe, Lokogo­ma, Gwarinpa, and Nyanya who said the directive felt like a sud­den bomb dropped on their lives. Some said the confusion caused unnecessary panic, as parents as­sumed there had been a security threat or some major regulatory breakdown. But what they got in­stead was confusion layered upon confusion.

At LifeBridge Private School in Kuje, the proprietor, Mr. Chuk­wudi Ogbuefi, said his staff re­ceived three different circulars within six hours, two of which contradicted an earlier inspec­tion report his school had passed.

“Just last week, Quality Assurance officers visited this school,” he said, holding a stamped evaluation form dated two weeks earlier.

“They gave us an ‘acceptable compliance’ rating. Then sudden­ly we are told to close? On what grounds? Who is issuing what? This is not regulation; this is con­fusion weaponised.”

Ogbuefi said his school lost nearly ₦700,000 in one day because parents demanded re­funds for extracurricular pro­grammes that were supposed to run throughout the week. He blamed the problem on what he called “a hydra-headed regulato­ry system where nobody is sure who runs what.”

The confusion was not limited to private schools. At Local Gov­ernment Education Authority (LGEA) Primary School, Karu, head teacher Mrs. Mariam Dan­ladi said they received a call from an area council education offi­cer instructing them to dismiss pupils early. Two hours later, the FCT Education Secretariat issued a counter-statement dis­missing the earlier directive. “We cannot run schools like this,” she said. “We need one voice, not five offices issuing separate orders.”

Documents reviewed for this report show that at least three dif­ferent circulars circulated among Abuja schools that day. One, on the letterhead of the Department of Quality Assurance, referenced an “urgent compliance opera­tion”; another, bearing the stamp of the FCT Education Secretar­iat, said no school should close until further verification, while a third, attributed to the UBEB, ap­peared to exempt public schools from the order altogether.

The FCT administration lat­er issued a press release saying the closure directive had been “misinterpreted”, but did not state who authorized the initial memo, how it was leaked, or why multiple versions existed.

An official within the Educa­tion Secretariat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to com­ment, said the problem stemmed from “a long-standing turf war” between agencies. “Quality Assurance believes it has the mandate to regulate all schools. UBEB believes it controls basic education.”

Area councils run their own education departments. And the Education Secretariat tries to coordinate all of them. But co­ordination is weak. So when one department issues a directive, an­other may undermine it without consequence.”

He added that the directive was originally meant for a small group of schools operating ille­gally without registration, but that “the message was poorly communicated and ended up looking like a citywide shut­down”.

The FCT Administration did not respond to repeated requests for clarification. Calls to the office of the Director of Quality Assur­ance, Mrs. Hadiza Muhammad, went unanswered.

A spokesman for UBEB, Mr. Solomon Oche, said in a short message that the board “did not authorize any blanket closure” but did not comment on the con­tradictions.

In Gwarinpa, Mr. Akeem Oladipupo, whose daughter attends Starville International School, said he arrived at the school only to find teachers de­bating which circular to obey.

“Imagine a whole FCT where you don’t even know which memo to trust,” he said. “Govern­ment must speak with one voice. Schools are not barber shops you shut down in confusion. These are children. Their lives need stability.”

Oladipupo, a civil engineer, said the incident reminded him of the COVID-19 era, when con­flicting circulars created weeks of confusion about reopening dates. “History is repeating it­self,” he said. “No lessons have been learned.”

Interviews with multiple school proprietors reveal a pat­tern: the FCT’s regulatory system is fragmented, inconsistently applied, and often politicized. A proprietor in Jabi, Mrs. Florence Nkama, said she fears the confu­sion was “not accidental but a result of long-running power struggles.”

She described situations where different regulatory teams from the same department de­mand separate compliance fees.

“Sometimes we get inspected by two separate teams claiming to be from Quality Assurance,” she said. “If you ask too many questions, they threaten to clas­sify your school as non-compli­ant. Many of us simply comply to avoid trouble.”

Nkama showed inspection re­ports from two different teams, both dated in the same month, with different signatures and contradictory assessments of the school’s sanitation standards. “Which one am I supposed to fol­low?” she asked.

Teachers say the ripple effect of the confusion goes far beyond administrative headaches.

At Premier Gate College, Lugbe, a teacher, Mr. Cyril Ume, said pupils were in the middle of continuous assessment tests when the closure directive went viral. “Children were crying,” he said. “They thought something was wrong. Some were asking if bandits were coming. This gov­ernment does not understand the psychological effects of instabili­ty on young learners.”

Ume said teachers often suffer the most but are rarely consult­ed. “We are the shock absorbers. Parents vent their frustration on us, proprietors look to us for guid­ance, but government never asks for our perspective.”

Security concerns—whis­pered behind the scenes—may have triggered the initial direc­tive. An official at one of the area councils, who insisted his name be withheld, said intelligence reports suggested that some vul­nerable schools in the outskirts required immediate assessment. “But instead of quietly conduct­ing checks, someone in Quality Assurance leaked a blanket memo,” he said. “By the time the Secretariat tried to correct it, the document had gone viral.”

Investigations show that Abu­ja’s outer districts—Kwali, Kuje, Bwari, Abaji, and some parts of Gwagwalada—have seen in­creased security incidents over the past year, including kidnap­pings and attacks on remote com­munities.

However, none of the circu­lars made explicit reference to security concerns, reinforcing public suspicion that the govern­ment was hiding information or simply disorganized.

Education lawyer and policy advocate, Barrister John Enoh, said the lack of transparency is “deeply troubling.”

He explained that under Nige­rian law, school-closure directives must be justified, documented, and communicated through an authorized channel.

“If three circulars appear on the same issue, only one can be le­gitimate,” he said. “The question is: who issued the others? Were they forged, leaked prematurely, or deliberately created to cause confusion? These are questions the FCT must answer.”

Olatide said schools could the­oretically challenge the directive in court. “If a directive is vague, contradictory, or issued without due process, affected schools have legal grounds to seek judicial re­view,” he stated.

The controversy reflects deeper structural issues within the FCT. Unlike other states that have elected governors, Abuja operates under a minister—cur­rently appointed by the Presi­dent—who oversees multiple departments that function with minimal legislative oversight.

This creates a governance model where federal, state-like, and local authorities overlap. In education, the result is what several stakeholders describe as “institutional noise”.

A retired FCT official, Mr. Bala Madaki, who once worked in the Education Secretariat, said the fragmentation is deliberate. “Each department wants rele­vance. Nobody wants to appear subordinate,” he said. “Over the years this has created a competi­tive environment where agencies duplicate functions instead of aligning them.”

He pointed to the fact that UBEB, Quality Assurance, the Education Secretariat, and six area councils all have educa­tion-related mandates. “With so many hands in the pot, chaos is inevitable,” he said.

Parents fear the incident will not be the last. Many say the gov­ernment lacks a modern commu­nication system that can prevent misinformation. An Abuja-based tech analyst, Mrs. Halima Musa, whose son attends Oak Heights School in Lokogoma, said the FCT should adopt an official mo­bile app or unified digital portal for school directives.

“Instead of WhatsApp leak­ages, we need a single platform where parents, schools, and of­ficials can verify any announce­ment,” she said.

For now, the damage has been done. Many private schools report financial losses. Some par­ents have lost trust in the system.

Children have experienced yet another disruption in their fragile academic calendar. And the FCT administration, despite issuing a late-night “clarifica­tion”, has not addressed the core questions: Who issued the first memo? Why were there multiple versions? Why does the FCT op­erate competing agencies with overlapping powers? And why were schools and parents not briefed before such a disruptive directive went public?

Several parents are calling for a formal public inquiry. Among them is Mr. Augustine Abba, a parent in Nyanya whose daughter attends Lumen Schol­ars Academy. “Someone must answer for this,” he said. “Gov­ernance is not guesswork. Abuja cannot run like a trial-and-error workshop.”

School proprietors are also considering forming a coalition to demand clearer regulatory engagement. “This may be the wake-up call,” said Mrs. Nkama. “If we don’t push for reforms, this confusion will continue.”

While the dust has not fully settled, one thing is clear: Abu­ja’s education governing system is crying for structural overhaul.

The capital city cannot contin­ue to operate with regulatory dis­array that jeopardizes learning and endangers trust.

Until the FCT adopts a unified command structure, eliminates overlapping mandates, and em­braces transparent communica­tion, schoolchildren will remain casualties of bureaucratic dis­order.

The controversy may fade, but its lessons remain stark. The FCT must decide whether it wants to govern education with efficiency and clarity—or continue down a path where confusion becomes the norm, and children pay the price for administrative dysfunc­tion.

In a city that should set the national standard, the latest school-closure crisis is a remind­er of how fragile governance can be when institutions speak with many voices and none takes re­sponsibility.

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