Sultan of Sokoto State and co-chairman of the Nigeria Inter-religious Council, Alhaji Muhammad Sa'ad Abubakar III, has explained why the Northern region of the nation is backwards when it comes to education.

The first-class monarch, who spoke on Tuesday in Abuja at the conference organised by the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation with the theme, “Education in Northern Nigeria: Status, Challenges, and the Way Forward”, said lack of implementation of past recommendations is the major reason for setbacks on education in the North.

According to him, the region would continue to suffer the same fate if the recommendations of previous panels are not taken seriously, or implemented.

The Sultan of Sokoto, who spoke as Chairman of the Northern Traditional Rulers Council, representing 20 first-class traditional rulers, stressed the need for stakeholders in the North to show more seriousness in the area of implementation of recommendations made to accelerate the development of education.

He said the region would continue to organize conferences annually with no progress if actions are not taken towards implementation.

Speaking further, the Sultan commended a former Minister of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufai, and her team for carrying out another research whose recommendations he tasked the stakeholders to constitute a committee for its implementation to achieve the desired goals.

“That is our problem, implementation. If we don’t implement it, we come back next year for another conference and still talk about the same thing. So, let’s be more serious now because if you have identified a problem, you have half of the solution. Now, let’s look for the other half of the solution so that we can move forward,” Daily Trust quoted the renowned monarch as saying