Resumption: The call to foreclose bandits’ attacks on schools

With resumption of schools ringing bell for a new year, following the yuletide break, one subject matter before hand is that of insecurity which recently started assuming the phase of bandits’ attacks against schools with the criminal disposition of kidnapping pupils for ransom. The phenomenon has left nothing but fear in the heart of pupils and their loved ones. This panic has been particular in threats zones, especially in the North which recently has been entangled with the scourge of banditry. In particular, the North West has been enmeshed typically in the scourge.

On Saturday, it was reported that Gunmen in Kebbi state released 30 students and a teacher after holding them captives for seven months in their den. Recall that last June, gunmen stormed the college in question, in the town of Yauri, seizing 102 students and eight staff according to the school. Although the attack was confirmed by the police yet they refrained from the actual number of victims kidnapped. Security personnel reportedly rescued eight of the kidnapped students and a teacher while bodies of three students were found in the bush. The kidnappers freed 27 students and three staff in October, while an unspecified number were released after their parents negotiated with the paptors.

Reactions from stakeholders have recently been taking toll of concerns as Schools recently are increasingly becoming soft spots from mischievous elements of terror and mayhem across the Country. Recent situations have seen bandits taking the part of the precedent laid by the 2014 kidnap of the Chibok schools girls with determined attempt directed at pupils and students. The North West has recently being faced with the scourge of banditry with the turn to kidnap-for-ransom mayhem assuming expansive character for which school children have also been enlisted in their soft targets.  It has been observed kidnapped students are often released after ransom payments. According to the United Nations, no less than 1,400 children were abduted in Nigeria last year mostly during attacks on schools and colleges by gunmen known locally as “bandits.”

At the hills of resumption last September, the United Nations Children’s Fund, (UNICEF) reported that at least one million among more than 37 million school children in Nigeria were held up in fear of returning to school, as resumption commenced. UNICEF had noted that “so far this year (2021), there have been 20 attacks on schools in Nigeria, with 1,436 children abducted and 16 children dead, adding that “more than 200 children are still missing.” 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.

Reservations and concerns have begun to take toll recently as it appears the school system may be far drifting into the danger zone of insecurity threats.  Late last year, former students of unity schools in the country under the umbrella of Unity Schools Old Students Association (USOSA) had appealed to the Federal Government to prioritise protection of learning centres across the Country following worries over the heightening of insecurity threats, with emphasis on terrorist attacks on schools. President-General of USOSA, Lawrence Wilbert, speaking at its 38th Plenary and Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Abuja, had lamented the approach of the Government for the sour development. Wilbert, in his presentation at the event, tagged: “The Role of USOSA in Uniting Nigeria,” had lamented that the education sector is seriously threatened, tasking the government to secure learning environment for students to excel.

Stressing that “education is a fundamental and constitutional right of every child,” he was quoted: “The association abhors extremism, particularly as it relates to the safety of students and academic establishments. We have lost too many innocent souls, and education sector is seriously threatened, particularly in the northern part of Nigeria. In this quest of nation building, the role of education both basic and secondary cannot be over emphasised. The inability of the government to tackle security and other challenges facing the society has left schools exposed to attacks and left Nigerians desperately groaning for help. The strong, united Nigeria we knew as children and students of various unity schools across the land is clearly disintegrating before our eyes. The socio-economic prosperity, ethno-religious co-existence and mutual trust, sound moral quotient, palpable patriotic spirit, people oriented political leadership and other vital features of our national fabric seemingly have taken permanent leave of our shores. The consequences are glaring. Our law and justice system, education, business and finance, security and agriculture, sports and health, science and technology, politics and governance, and other vestiges of functional society have taken deep plunge into the abyss of a failing nationhood.”

It is in the affirmative inarguable that the scourge of insecurity threats has begun to hit the blow of deformities on the education sector. The situation becomes mind-boggling when thought to the State of education profile in the North. It has become troubling that a part of the Country largely ridden with deficiencies of deep seated deficits in education is coming under the cloud of threats to educational formations — a development capturing the sense of panic and fear as strings of deterring factors capable of worsening the apathy syndrome to education in the region. It is instructive to note that the associated troubles attached with having a huge population highly uneducated is such which portends strings of conditions unfavourable to the quest of development civilisation. It is pertinent that the Government come to the reality of the importance of addressing the strains posed by insecurity against schools in the North to foreclose the entrenchment of the prevailing deep seated apathy to education. The human capacity profile of the Country’s population is known to be unsavoury to a large extent as significantly inspired by huge deficit in education, particularly in the teeming population of the North.

The essence of a huge population is defeated when the larger majority are within the corridor of low human capacity profile. Under such conditions, against serving as an advantage, such demographic character only pose precondition of backward or sluggish growth. It is essential that the Federal and the respective State’s Government in the Federation develop coordinated strategies to address the threats as a subject of priority. The scourge of insecurity with attacks against schools, portend threats of furthering the entrenchment of apathy to education, particularly in the North, worst hit by the mayhem. As schools resume for the year, it is pertinent for the Federal Government to work with state and local authorities to develop system of security intelligence to prevent the snare of any narrative of attacks on schools this year.