By Abubakar M. Kareto
A state’s demographic weight is meaningless if its human capital is functionally illiterate. The release of the 2026 Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination performance distribution across the nineteen northern states delivers a severe indictment of governance, public spending, and social priorities across Northern Nigeria. It is an empirical autopsy of a region sleepwalking into long-term economic irrelevance.
A direct comparison of the data exposes disparities that cannot be rationalized by population size, economic baseline, or regional context. Kano State holds an estimated population of seventeen point five million people and fielded seventy-three thousand seven hundred and forty-one candidates across forty-four local government areas. Yet out of this massive pool, Kano produced a negligible thirty-six candidates who scored three hundred and above, four hundred and seven candidates in the two hundred and fifty to two hundred and ninety-nine bracket, and three thousand four hundred and eighty-four candidates scoring between two hundred and two hundred and forty-nine. In twenty-three of Kano’s forty-four local government areas, not a single candidate managed to reach the three hundred mark.
Even within Kano itself, the internal fractures are staggering. Nearly forty percent of the state’s total applicants came from just four metropolitan local government areas, namely Gwale, Kumbotso, Nassarawa, and Ungogo. Meanwhile, agrarian and rural local councils such as Kunchi and Makoda registered barely one hundred and fifty candidates each. This extreme rural disenfranchisement shows that beyond the city centers, the formal basic education pipeline has effectively flatlined, leaving millions of school-age adolescents entirely outside the tertiary transition stream.
In sharp contrast, Kwara State holds a modest population of three point four million people, roughly one-fifth the size of Kano. Despite this demographic difference, Kwara generated four hundred and forty-three candidates scoring three hundred and above, which is more than twelve times Kano’s output. Kwara also recorded three thousand and thirty-four candidates scoring between two hundred and fifty and two hundred and ninety-nine, alongside fifteen thousand two hundred and fifteen candidates scoring between two hundred and two hundred and forty-nine. In practical terms, Kwara alone produced more top-tier candidates than all thirteen states of the North West and North East geopolitical zones combined.
The crisis deepens when looking further across the North West. The entire axis of Sokoto, Kebbi, and Zamfara collectively produced only eighteen candidates scoring three hundred and above, averaging a dismal six candidates per state. Meanwhile, North Central states demonstrate substantial academic depth, with Kogi producing four hundred and sixty-seven candidates above three hundred, and Benue recording similarly dense competitive figures. The success of Kwara, Kogi, and Benue proves that northern policymakers do not need to look abroad or to the far south for answers. These neighboring states have leveraged stronger foundational teacher qualifications, competitive community schooling networks, and institutional discipline to build resilient learning cultures.
A nuanced look at the North East reveals that post-conflict recovery dynamics also shape these outcomes. Borno State, for instance, registered over thirty-three thousand candidates, demonstrating substantial mobilization resilience after years of infrastructure disruption. The state held its ground against peers like Yobe, Taraba, Kebbi, and Sokoto in aggregate turnout and baseline qualifying bands, with urban centers like Maiduguri and Jere producing stable cohorts for regional institutions such as the University of Maiduguri, Borno State University, and Ramat Polytechnic. Yet Borno faces the same structural ceiling seen across the wider north, marked by a scarcity of elite scores above two hundred and fifty and a severe urban-rural divide where outlying areas suffer from teacher shortages and non-existent digital test infrastructure. While respectable within the framework of post-conflict rebuilding, it still trails the qualitative standard set by North Central states.
This broader regional chasm is not a genetic, cultural, or religious inevitability. It is the calculated outcome of governance choices. When a state administration allocates one point five billion Naira to finance mass weddings while public secondary schools lack functional science laboratories, qualified mathematics instructors, and basic computers, the resulting scorecard is entirely predictable. Northern governors frequently celebrate spending hundreds of millions of Naira to subsidize examination registration fees for indigent students. Yet paying entry fees for candidates who were never taught the curriculum, never exposed to mock exams, and never introduced to computer keyboards is political theater, not educational development.
The long-term economic and structural consequences of these results are catastrophic. Elite university programs such as medicine, artificial intelligence, software engineering, quantitative finance, and corporate law routinely require scores well above national averages. By failing to prepare its youth for these disciplines, the core North is systematically locking itself out of modern high-value industries.
Worse still, this intellectual deficit directly threatens regional state capacity. When a region fails to produce qualified professionals, its own civil service, public hospitals, engineering corps, and judicial benches suffer from an acute domestic talent drought. Relying on quota systems, lowered admission cutoffs, and administrative affirmative action does not cure this decay. It merely masks systemic institutional failure and encourages policy complacency.
Reversing this decline requires immediate, decisive action. Northern state governments must declare an emergency in basic education and reallocate wasteful social welfare spending into classroom infrastructure, laboratory supplies, and teacher remuneration. Every local government headquarters requires fully equipped, solar-powered digital testing centers so children can master computer-based interfaces years before their final secondary school exams. Finally, state executives must be held accountable not by the number of political ceremonies they host or the registration fees they distribute, but by measurable learning outcomes, basic literacy rates, and verifiable academic merit.
Author Bio
Abubakar M. Kareto is a public affairs analyst, communications strategist, and political commentator specializing in governance, public policy, and socio-economic developments in Nigeria and beyond. He can be reached via amkareto@gmail.com or on X @amkareto.
