Education key to ending banditry

By Omojowo Ajosanmi

If the Federal Government is serious about ending terrorism, kidnapping and banditry, it must provide good, sound, and quality education.

Education is not only an eye-opener, but it also helps to expand the horizon. However, it will be highly impossible to convince an  educated elite to kill a fellow human all in the name of religion because he would be much more aware that the God is not about religion but love.

If less is spent  on education,then much more will be  spent   on fighting insecurity. You secure the present,and the future by giving good and sound education to youths.

It is not out of place to  attribute the rising wave of insecurity to the army of uneducated citizens roaming the streets.

The best way to address terrorism, banditry and other vices is through sound education.When you give the people quality education, you would have established peace of mind. Making education accessible and affordable is a long-lasting panacea to societal problems.

A state that wants to experience peace and calm  must be ready to invest in educating her citizens.

Education makes it easy for an individual to differentiate between wrong and right. It will also bring decent levels of civility rather than unwarranted killing of fellow humans.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, Nigeria has over 10 million out-of-school children. That is the highest in the world. Another 27 million children in school are performing very poorly. Millions of Nigerians are half-educated, and over 60 million (30 per cent) are illiterates.

While  other countries are investing heavily in their education sector, we are busy paying lip service to ours.

The budgetary allocation for education remains abysmal.

The 2021 Budget for education is Nigeria’s lowest in 10 years with just 5.6 per cent of the overall national budget. Are we progressing or not?

Though, we are in the middle of the pandemic and it affects everything including how we generate our funds. Then, the question is, what about when there was no pandemic? For the past few years, Nigeria’s funding for education has always been between five per cent and 10 per cent. It is sad.

• Ajosanmi is a 200-Level Political Science student of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko.