FLORENCE OLUGBODI looks at the high rate of kidnapping of students in the Northern region of Nigeria and concludes that if something urgent was not done about it, it may further worsen the issue of out-of-school children currently ravaging the region.
Education across the world remains a major ingredient for Human Capital Development, and Nigeria as a developing economy requires a skilled population, especially in the face of dwindling foreign investments and oil revenue.
However, the school system in the country has come under severe attacks in recent times, no thanks to the activities of bandits and criminal elements who have made schools, most especially in Northern Nigeria, their targets, kidnapping children and teachers at will.
While Northern Nigeria is believed to lag behind its Southern counterpart in the area of school enrollment and gender equality, the almost daily occurrence of kidnapping has continued to be a major source of concern to stakeholders in the education sector in the region. In recent times, hardly a week goes by without a report of one incidence of kidnapping or the other of students in primary and secondary schools, and in some instances, higher institutions.
Records of incidents of kidnappings of students are as scary as they come. For instance, between 2014 and 2021, over two thousand students have been kidnapped from their schools. The breakdown of the number of abducted students in the last seven years showed that 276 were kidnapped at Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State in April 2014; 113 at Government Girls Secondary and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State, on 19 February 2018; 344 at Government Science Secondary School, Kankaara, Kastina State.
On 11 December 2020, 80 at Islamiyya Schools, Muhurta Town, Kastina State; on 20 December 2020, 27 at the Government Science College, Kagara, Niger State; on 17 February 2021, 317 from Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe, Zamfara State; on 12 March 2021, 27 from Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna State.
Similarly, about 17 students of Greenfield University were kidnapped in Kaduna State on 21 April 2021. The bandits killed five of the students and released the remaining 14 who were held captive for more than a month. On 30th May 2021, 169 pupils were kidnapped at Salihu Tanko Islamic School, Regina, Niger State. On 11th June 2021, bandits kidnapped eight students and some lecturers at Nuhu Bamali Polytechnic, Zaria, Kaduna State.
Also, on 17 June 2021, armed bandits kidnapped 80 schoolchildren and five teachers at the Federal Government College, Birnin Yauri, Kebbi State. On 6th July 2021, about 125 students were kidnapped by bandits at Bethel Baptist High School in Damishi town of Chikun Local Government Area in Kaduna State which led to the closure of about 13 schools in the state. On 1 September 2021, about 73 students were abducted at Government Day Secondary School, Kaya, Zamfara State.
What is worrisome about the school kidnapping saga is that it has been fuelled by a major elephant in the room, a huge motivator for the persistent malfeasance- ransoms. Parents and guardians are often put under immense pressure to pay ransoms to secure the release of their children and wards as the government appears not to be of much assistance, a situation some analysts believe may further exacerbate the crisis. For instance, in the Greenfield University kidnap saga, some parents of the affected students revealed that they ended up paying as much as N150 million to the terrorists, who initially demanded the sum of N800 million.
The effect of these attacks can only be imagined as it has further exacerbated the already bad enrollment figures, a development antithetical to sustainable and national development.
While state governments have put in place various measures to put a stop to the menace such as the closure of schools by states including Zamfara and Kaduna states, analysts are of the view that kidnapping of students for ransom may further impact negatively on the education sector with the country having one of the world’s highest numbers of out-of-school children at about 10.5 million, according to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Country Representative of UNICEF in Nigeria, Mr Peter Hawkins, while faulting the measure taken by some state governments to close schools, said it is not the best approach at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is rife, noting that the health situation had forced some parents to withdraw their children, or decided not to return them to school. According to him, insecurity, and threats to educational facilities can only compound an already difficult situation. He said, “The solution to insecurity in schools is not to close down schools. It is to improve the security, improve connections between schools and communities so the communities themselves offer some semblance of security.”
The UNICEF top shot further lamented that attacks on students and schools are not only reprehensible but also constitutes a gross violation of the right of children to education, maintaining that it is a right that no society can afford to violate. The world organisation, in a statement, called on the Nigerian government to take all measures to protect schools in the country, implement the promises made in the Financing Safe Schools in Nigeria conference, held in April this year, so that children will not be fearful of going to school and parents afraid of sending their children to school.
On his part, Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, opined that the repeated attacks on schools by those he described as terrorists are fast making the country close to the stage of accepting an ‘unacceptable culture.’ He also stressed that states may need to shut down some of their activities in solidarity with affected states where kidnapping of children is rampant, insisting that those at the helm of affairs of the nation have failed the populace.
A retired principal, Mr James Okpanachi, speaking on the rampant cases of mass abduction in the North, said students have become vulnerable and live in fear of being abducted. According to him, “The rising cases of kidnapping incidents at schools in Nigeria show how vulnerable our schools have become to attackers and kidnappers. It means that kidnappers, bandits, terrorists or whatever name they are called have declared war on the education industry in Nigeria and by extension on the future of our students and country.
“Never in history has the education industry in Nigeria, especially in the Northern part, been so threatened by insecurity like its current state The attackers or abductors of school children often do so not only to collect ransom but also to intimidate and deny young people the access to western education or civilisation. School abductions are dangerous, condemnable and barbaric not only because it truncates student’s right to education, but could also lead to the untimely death of innocent school children who have not sinned other than just trying to be educated”, he added.
However, most Nigerians believed that a weak security infrastructure and governors who have little control over security in their states as the police and other security agencies are controlled by the federal authority may be just the be factors responsible for the lapse
Indeed, analysts believed that the payment of ransoms is a major motivating factor even as more bandits join in the illicit trade. Some have even accused government officials of being behind the spate of insecurity when they pay ransoms, lamenting that a government serious about tackling the issue would not pay any money to criminal armed groups in the form of ransom for kidnappings as it is an offence against citizens that require proactive measures to curb.
With the increasing incident of attacks on schools and the kidnapping of students, the entire educational system in Northern Nigeria may be at risk if nothing is done urgently to put a stop to it as many more may be forced to abandon education altogether.
Indeed the various levels of government in the Northern part owe it a duty to prioritise the lives and safety of youth in words and indeed because as the saying goes, “A country at war with its youth, has no future.”
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