It has been observed at a security workshop that inadequate checks in schools is to blame for the rising cases of abductions of pupils since the Chibok episode over two years ago. GBENGA OMOKHUNU reports
Since the abduction of the Chibok girls on the night of April 14, 2014, there have been sessions of talkshops offering ways on how schools could be better secured. But even as those sessions lasted, criminals’s appetite for abductions did not abate.
Earlier this year some female students of the Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary School, Ikorodu, Lagos were kidnapped in the school premises, making it a second occurrence this year after the abduction of some students of the Lagos State Model College, Igbo Nla in Epe, Lagos, where the school principal was also abducted. They all have been released.
Security operatives and the National Commandant of the Peace Corps of Nigeria (PCN), Ambassador Dickson Akoh at a training workshop on schools safety and security spoke extensively on how schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja can maintain safety.
It has been said, among other things, that those hired as schools’l security men are mere gatemen.
Akoh said security arrangements put in place in schools by government are not adequate.
“When we do not commit much in terms of peace to secure our schools the outcome will be very devastating. For us the security arrangements put in place in schools are inadequate. We have conducted our findings to the United States of America (USA) and Brazil and from the moment parents or guardians bring their children to school and hand them over to the school authorities,” Akoh said.
He also advised private school authorities to be conscious of where the child is, adding, “Most of the people they engage in schools to provide security are not security men but those meant to open gates and they are not trained.
“I am delighted to be part of this all important workshop and more so, as a presenter. In similar fashion, I also consider it worthy to commend the efforts of the organizers of this workshop and for finding Peace Corps of Nigeria as a worthy stakeholder in School Security Management.
“Studies have shown that students who do not feel safe at school stay at home and when they are not in school, they do not perform well academically. Schools designed to be a centre for learning should be safe, secured and peaceful but in a situation where the school premises appear unsafe for learning, students will always be reluctant to go to school. Generally speaking, no child will succeed academically if they don’t first feel safe in the school environment. In the same vein, a teacher will not teach at his best if there is no plan to ensure the school is prepared for emergencies.
“In advanced countries of the World such as the United States of America, concerted efforts are made to formulate and implement policies that ensure provision of comprehensive security in schools on the basis of students brought to school and their new guardian becoming one of their teachers and, or also members security staff within the school system.”
Having adequate security arrangement, Akoh said, is a great way to help reduce insecurity problems in Nigerian schools: “Recent national tragedies of abduction of students especially as being witnessed in the Northeastern Nigeria where well over 200 schoolgirls were abducted by insurgent group, have placed school security at the top of the priority list for many States.
“It is instructive to further recommend that religious leaders should preach against violent acts in their respective communities. Reports have it that almost 50 per cent of students are prone to various degrees of violence either towards their fellow students or teachers. Therefore, it is imperative to encourage school administrators to accept and encourage the activities of specially trained and equipped Organizations such as Peace Corps of Nigeria to be part of their School system and bring their professionalism to bare in the area of discipline.
“Insecurity in our country has seriously retarded learning and in most cases, stopped conventional education activities. In the North-eastern Nigeria, suicide bombings targeted at youths have directly put teachers, students and schools in the line of fire. Lack of proper security network has cast even a more serious pall on the situation, yet it is impossible to gauge the exact impact of insecurity on education because no one including the Government has statistics of the number of schools or educational settings operating in the country under attack or ever been attacked.
“Without effective security networks or credible media that can track and speak definitively about the security environment, parents and students are forced to assess their risk based on rumors and incomplete information. Due to limited reporting, very limited number of attacks are reported and people fear the worst,” said Horia Mossadeq, of Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium which has investigated the state of Afghanistan’s educational system for several years. For example, the Afghani Independent Human Rights Commission investigated rumours in Mazar-e Sharif about the kidnapping of students in 2004 and 2005 and found only one incident in that city. Local investigators with the Afghani Independent Human Rights Commission believed that local individuals opposed to education magnified the incident in order to discourage school attendance. In another example, the mother of five girls attending school in Kandahar explained how she keeps her daughters at home due to incomplete security information. In her words, “…there is no official announcement but the community talks about a situation getting worse so we stop them from going…”
