The Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), has threatened to stop teaching if the spate of violence in schools especially in the North were not stopped.
It would be recalled that in the last six months, students and teachers have been kidnapped from schools in Katsina, Niger, Zamfara and Kaduna states, all in the North West.
Speaking with journalists, Secretary General of the NUT, Dr. Mike Ene, who decried the failure of government at all levels to prioritise education, said the neglect of education might be because it was on the concurrent list, adding that if it weren’t, the Safe School Initiative (SSI), which was launched in 2014, ought to have been put in place to ensure teachers safety.
He expressed shock over the seemingly confusion and inability of government and security agencies to address the degenerating insecurity in the country. He said: “It is one too many; they kidnap today.
In the next 48 hours, they kidnap again and if security operatives rush there, they go to another location and kidnap. People are asking who is playing the Ostrich?
“Is it because the government does not know what to do, they can’t plan their strategies or that those who know that security is the business of everybody don’t want to talk because in every community or kindred, they know each other. So, when there is a foreign party, somebody should say something. “NUT is highly worried.
We started crying that schools have become soft targets when it was with Chibok but right now, it has become a daily occurrence where they take away the pupils and the teachers.”
The NUT scribe further tackled state governors for not making judicious use of security votes, especially in the North where a sect seemed to have declared war on western education.
He continued: “I wonder what they are looking for by kidnapping teachers. Is it that the kidnappers do not want western education to go on in this country again or it is now the business where the rich is sponsoring the poor to risk their lives to go and kidnap, so that when they come to an agreed place they keep them. “We talk about security votes. What is this security vote?
How much is it and how are they using it? Do they use it to set up vigilante here and there or to bring securities that can come and kill security in the school? “For instance, land is not a problem in the north.
So, you can find a school sitting on one hectare of land but you will find only two unarmed security men, probably one in the morning and the second at night. They just ask a few questions and allow people in. “That is not security.
The kind of security we are referring to is a combination of all uniformed men including the ones hired by the state government locally, fully armed and placed in strategic places and they raise an alarm once they find any suspicious movement.
“I am sure the weaponry we have and the fine training of our military and other security is far better than what these so called bandits have. So, it’s a question of the way of gathering information and how we interpret it, so we can flush out these people.
“Therefore, the issue of kidnapping teachers is highly worrisome and we are saying if it continues, we will review our position and ask our employees to assure us. “It is highly condemnable. We all frown at it and we are engaging the governors in affected states to intensify security in our schools.”
With 10,193,918 OSC children, Nigeria has the highest number of children not in school globally, and most recently, experts have said an additional three million children have been added to the number due to insecurity and the COVID-19 pandemic.
