Can Nigerian schools be safe?

Chika Okoli

EDUCATION is under attack in Nigeria. With all-time high school attacks and student abductions, the country’s future is fraught with uncertainties. Across the regions of the country, there are pockets of challenges limiting the delivery of safe and quality education. The situation is more precarious in the northern region of the country. Statistics reveal that more than 1400 students have been kidnapped from schools in Nigeria since the February 2014 abduction and killing of 59 students from Buni Yadi secondary school in Yobe. For many students, going to school has become a nightmare because hundreds of schools have been closed due to increased attacks on schools by bandits and terrorist groups. For those still open, students learn with visible fears while parents and teachers appear helpless in cases of abuse, attack and abduction. Every day, students are at risk of radicalisation, recruitment, sexual exploitations, early marriage, defilement and rape, amongst others.

Although Nigeria is a signatory to and a major beneficiary of the global Safe School Declaration launched in 2014, there has been no commensurate result with the level of vocalised commitment in providing safe and secure schools. Hardly has any state implemented up to 70 per cent of any of the three major components of the declaration – Schools Map out, National Emergency Response Plan, Awareness & Community Engagement.

As Nigeria hosts the International Conference on Safe School Declaration this month, it is imperative that all stakeholders – governments, parents, communities, religious and traditional entities, NGOs and development partners – rethink the value of education and the cost of grooming an uneducated populace. Beyond rhetorics and powerless promises, there has to be clarity on why citizens must receive twelve years of quality education, the current limitations to providing and accessing basic education and what is required to change the status quo. While insecurity is a current and major problem affecting education in Nigeria, governments must decisively address the adjoining issues that propped insecurity thus far. Insecurity is not an isolated problem for education in Nigeria; it is a Nigerian problem with a crosscutting effect and must be tackled as such.

Nigeria cannot afford to host this global conference without leading the way in providing safety, hence, the need to galvanise state and non-state actors and resources to solve the challenge of insecurity and poor basic education in Nigeria.

The safe school initiative is realistic in Nigeria, but it will require more than just mere rhetorics, lip service, call for more funds without proper utilisation. Governments at all levels must address critical issues of poverty, insecurity, poor infrastructure and work with community and religious leaders to address age-long orientations hindering the education and empowerment of the girl-child.

• Chika Okoli, Abuja

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