Gunmen and Varsity Students
The authorities must do more to safeguard schools
The abduction of six Nasarawa State University students has again raised fears over the safety of education spaces, especially in the North. The students were reportedly abducted in Keffi after armed hoodlums stormed an off-campus lodge in Gudi, Akwanga Local Government Area of the state. Six victims have been identified, all students of the Faculty of Engineering, Gudi Campus of the University, alongside one other victim who was reportedly visiting one of the students at the time of the incident.
From Federal University of Lafia in the same Nasarawa State where students were abducted from their residential area to the University of Jos (UNIJOS) where gunmen seized seven students from a private hostel to the University of Abuja (UNIABUJA) where staff quarters were attacked, resulting in the kidnapping of lecturers and members of their families, attacks on the universities are becoming all too rampant. At the secondary level, the killings, abductions of staff and students as well as the wanton destruction of school structures have already impacted negatively on education.
However, while many secondary schools have in recent years been targeted by these criminal gangs, that they would carry their dastardly operation to tertiary institutions is why the authorities should be concerned. Indeed, Manuel Fotaine, who currently serves as the Special Adviser, Child Rights, in the office of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director, has long noted that when schools are under repeated attacks and students become targets “not only are their lives shattered, but the future of the nation is also stolen.” That’s precisely the situation in Nigeria today.
It all started with the 25th February 2014 brutal attacks on Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Yobe State. It was designed to instil fear in the minds of children and their teachers and to discourage the parents from sending their wards to school. On that tragic night, no fewer than 51 students were murdered. Attacks on other schools were to follow across many states. Thousands of boys and girls abducted from several schools, particularly at the peak of the conflict, were used as suicide bombers, while the girls were also subjected to all kinds of violence, including forced “marriages”.
In 2018, some criminal gangs abducted 108 schoolgirls from Dapchi before most were eventually returned after a controversial deal in which a girl (Leah Sharibu) was left behind reportedly on account of her faith. In 2019, gunmen killed three people at the College of Agriculture and Animal Science in Bakura, Zamfara State, and kidnapped 15 students and four staff. In December 2020, motorbike-riding bandits attacked Government Secondary School, Kankara in Katsina State to ferry away about 300 students. Some weeks later, they also snatched pupils and a teacher of an Islamic seminary heading home after school in the same state. In February 2021, a school pupil was killed, and 27 others were abducted by armed men from their school in Kagara, Niger State.
The spate of violence has prompted many to look out for ways of safeguarding students and teachers from physical threats. The Safe Schools Initiative launched in 2014 after the Chibok kidnap was meant to counter the growing attacks on the right to education and to build community security groups to promote safe zones for education, consisting of teachers, parents, police, and community leaders. Endorsed by the federal government in May 2015, the Safe School Initiative, with the support of national and international organisations, has developed several measures to rebuild schools and provide improved security for schools.
Now that these criminal gangs are targeting universities in the North, critical stakeholders must find workable solution to deal with the challenge.
