Insecurity: Compounding teachers’ plight as affected stakeholders

The sectoral impacts of insecurity in Nigeria have seen broad entanglements of structural deficiencies posing threats to the working parameters of several sectors in the Country. The impacts are such which evidently pose multi-sectoral threats ravaging the formations of socio-economic configurations in the Country. Of many sectors affected, the education sector has recently come under the scourge of the entanglements.

Recent turn of mischievous elements to schools as soft spots have seen the dimensions of insecurity attracting new narratives offsetting the sector, particularly in the North where the evolving storms of banditry have recently attracted new dynamics. While school children have since 2014 at the wake of the Chibok girls school kidnap been exposed to threats of insecurity with sprawling records of abductions from insurgents and bandits, it is observable that beyond school children, other stakeholders have been exposed to threats of the scourge particularly in the North.

Teachers as strategic stakeholders are known to be inexcusable from the threats of insecurity targeted at schools across several parts of the Country. The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) had over the weekend said it has lost no less than  800 teachers to insecurity in the Northeastern part of the Country. The Union had threatened it would withdraw its members and students from schools that do not have adequate security. The National President of the Union, Dr. Nasir Idris, who disclosed this while fielding questions from journalists in Abuja, had lamented that teachers were being kidnapped alongside their students in the North-West. According to him, when kidnappers attack the schools, some teachers would insist that they would not abandon their students and even accept to go with them if they would be taken away. He had lamented that secondary school and primary school teachers were leaving the profession for other jobs, thus making the teaching profession more unattractive. He was quoted: “We have been making our case before the Federal Government because the way things are going, if this thing is not addressed, before you close your eyes and open them, you may notice that schools will be non-existent in so many places in this country. We appeal to the Federal Government to help provide security in our schools, and at the same time, ensure that not only is security provided, but also enough security to man those schools where we have problems. If you look at it, you will see that it’s not all the places we have problems. The problem is in some places, some local government areas, and some parts of the states where we have this issue of banditry and Boko haram. We have lost a lot of members as far as this issue is concerned. So, we said the government, as a matter of urgency, should provide security to those places. Any place we see that the Federal Government does not provide enough security to mount those posts, we can’t just put our children and teachers in trouble. So, that’s why we say that if security is not being provided, we will ask teachers in those areas to withdraw their services. We have made this point clear to the Federal Government. Well, I can say we have lost almost 800 teachers in the North East.

“It is not that we have lost teachers but teachers were being kidnapped together with their students because some of the teachers insisted they must go along with their students if the students were going to be taken away.They said if you are going to take our children, carry us all together because we can’t just leave our students to be with you.”

At the wake of resumption for basic and secondary schools for another academic calendar in September, panic over being attacked was set before children, their parents/guardians and relatives. The situation had yielded a gap of disconnection pulling children back from school. At least one million among more than 37 million school children in Nigeria were recorded to have been held up in fear of returning to school as the resumption commenced —  the United Nations Children’s Fund, (UNICEF) had observed. UNICEF had noted in September that “so far this year, there have been 20 attacks on schools in Nigeria, with 1,436 children abducted.” The organisation had added that the attacks have left 16 school children dead, and over 200 missing in 2021. According to the Agency, the fear by the children to return to schools, was borne by the heightening insecurity in the Country, which has seen bandits recently turning to schools to abduct pupils in exchange for ransom.

UNICEF, had in a statement by its Representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins, said learners were being cut off from their education and other vital benefits schools provide, as families and communities remain fearful of sending children back to their classrooms due to the spate of school attacks and student abductions in the Country over the last several months which has seen the  conditions of insecurity worsening.

The statement had read partly: “As more than 37 million Nigerian children start the new school year this month, at least one million are being left behind – afraid to return to school due to insecurity. Learners are being cut off from their education and other vital benefits schools provide, as families and communities remain fearful of sending children back to their classrooms due to the spate of school attacks and student abductions in Nigeria over the last several months and the current climate of insecurity. A child’s first day of school should be an exciting event for parents and children – a landmark moment in their young lives, signaling new learning and new friends that will impact their futures.This moment is being stolen from around a million Nigerian children this year, as insecurity threatens their safety and education.

“It is unacceptable that communities should be worried to send their children to school over fears they will be abducted from what should be a safe space. Insecurity must end so that children can return to their normal lives and benefit from all the important things being in school brings to them. It is unacceptable that children need to fear returning to their friends and classrooms – and that parents are afraid that if they send their children to school, they may never return.

“We need to end this insecurity and make our priorities clear – that Nigerian children can and must be allowed to benefit from an education in a safe space. We must put our children’s future first. We can and must tackle the insecurity, stop attacks on education, and keep schools open. The clock is ticking for our young students. Existing evidence shows the cost of addressing learning gaps is lower and more effective when they are tackled earlier, and that investments in education support economic recovery, growth, and prosperity.”

While the Boko Haram terrorism is known to have one of its foundational ideology to be persecution against western education, it is now saddening that the attack against education in the Country has become more clustered with the entanglements of the ravages of banditry.

Particularly, the need to coordinate security intelligence strategically to fortify security formation around schools is paramount presently for red zone areas which is typical of the North, while proactive measures should responsively be taken into course to foreclose the possibilities of the extension of the onslaught on areas where schools are still having relative peace. It is pertinent that the Government take sedulous efforts to coordinate security measures towards foreclosing the possibilities of factors capable of worsening insecurity threats against schools across the Country, particularly in the North presently overwhelmed with the scourge of banditry. The undesirability of the scourge of insecurity to the Country’s education system which has been troubled by several deficient factors cannot be understated. The clustering of the sectoral strains with the ravages of insecurity would only further entrench the wobbling profile of inconsistencies debilitating to the sector directly, and to the foremost, hostile to the quest of national socio-economic and political growth and development.