In this concluding part of this investigation, JULIANA FRANCIS probes the non-enforcement of extant laws and policies, which ordinarily ought to have ensured a safe learning environment for learners
She said: “Many parents are sceptical about the ability of
the government to fight banditry and as such, I don’t think my children will
return to school.” Hafsat said that her daughters were among students kidnapped
at GGSS Jangebe.
A student of GGSS, Aisha Mohammed, who was also among those abducted, narrated that she and other students were made to trek for several hours in the night before they reached the bandits’ den.
“We were marched into the bush like animals, while the
bandits kept shouting that they would shoot at anybody who tried to run away.
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| Secretary of Red Cross, Zamfara state chapter, Alhaji Ibrahim Bello Garba |
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| Malam Hafsat who withdrew her daughter from GGSS Jangebe due to insecurity |
I never expected that I would return alive. I was sick, but
the bandits kept telling us to walk faster. I could hardly eat or drink
anything due to the fever and the fear of the bandits. In fact, at one point, I
thought my death had come.
I didn’t eat much food that day due to the sickness. I was
planning to ask permission from the principal in order to go home for treatment
when the bandits invaded our school and abducted us,” she recalled.
The girl remembered that her illness worsened when she was
in the thick forest and saw abducted victims, who were there before them,
“chained like animals”. Aisha had also lost her mother to banditry in 2018.
The woman was abducted and ransom paid before she was
released. She died a few days after her release. She said: “There was no
medical facility in the forest, as such, anybody who falls sick either dies or
heals naturally.”
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| Aisha Mohammed who was sick when she was abducted |
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| Alhaji Ibrahim Mohammed |
‘I prefer getting married to returning to school’
Just like most of her colleagues, Aisha maintained that she
would not return to her school. “I prefer getting married to returning to the
school,” she said with resignation. Another victim, Zainab Ilyasu, remembered
that the gunmen invaded the school in their hundreds about 2am, shooting
sporadically into the air. They ordered students to step out and even went into
hostels to drag students out.
“They ordered us to start walking, warning that they would
kill anyone who disobeyed,” said Zainab. The girls were taken to the bandits’
den after trekking barefooted through the night.
She also remembered how shocked she was when she saw her
father in the bandits’ camp. Her father was kidnapped three months earlier. “My
father was tied up with a rope.
Immediately we set eyes on each other, we both burst into
tears. The bandits were quick to understand that I was his daughter.
We spent three days in the camp and finally, we were
returned to the Government House in Gusau by bus,” she recalled sadly. Zainab’s
father, Malam Ilyasu Gwaram, said he was filled with shame when the bandits
started beating him in the presence of his daughter.
He said that he and other victims were beaten every day. His
captors held him for three months because he was unable to pay the N1 million
ransom. He said his greatest humiliation was when the abducted students of GSS
Jangebe were brought to the bandits’ den.
“I nearly fainted because of the situation my daughter found
me in. The bandits would beat us in the presence of the students. I used to cry
like a baby because of the pains in the presence of my daughter.
She also used to cry whenever I was beaten,” said Gwaram. He
told our reporter that Zainab would soon be married, “because of the insecurity
situation, particularly in secondary schools in the country.
She has been redundant since February this year due to the
closure of the schools by the state government. We decided that she should get
married and go to her husband’s house”. Aside from mass abductions in schools,
investigation has shown that other schoolgirls are abducted in their homes and
communities.
A father of one of such schoolgirls, Alhaji Sani Maru, said
he was asked to pay a large sum of money for the release of his daughter, and
then he had to go and take loans.
He said: “After the bandits kidnapped my daughter and other
children in different homes, they demanded N50 million from me, but they later
reduced it to N2 million.
I had to take loans from my neighbours and friends before I
could raise the amount. I contacted both the state and the local government to
assist me, but I could not get anything from them.”
Thousands of schoolgirls out of school
The Secretary of the Red Cross Society, Zamfara State
chapter, Malam Ibrahim Bello, said thousands of schoolgirls are now out of
school owing to banditry.
He noted that many of the schoolgirls are presently staying
in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps with their parents since they are
forced out of their communities by bandits.
Bello added that most of them are not receiving academic
lessons. According to him, unless something is done to arrest the issue of
banditry, soon one will hardly see girls in schools in Zamfara State.
The Chairman, Zamfara Education and Community Development
Initiative (ZECDI), Alhaji Idris Mainasara, said: “Women education is heading
for the rocks!” Mainasara observed that more than 60 per cent of students, both
male and female, are out of school owing to insecurity in Zamfara State.
According to him, with the closure of more schools, the
state will continue to be among the most backward in education.
He said parents have lost confidence in the government.
Mainasara said his NGO is now finding it difficult to convince the parents and
guardians to send their wards to school because their security is not
guaranteed.
Kaduna State
At least five institutions of learning comprising primary,
secondary and tertiary schools across Kaduna State have been attacked or
attempted to be attacked by bandits in recent months. During this period in
Kaduna State, over 67 students and staff were kidnapped, while five were killed
by the bandits during their operations, which took place between March and
April this year. Similarly, bandits on April 20, invaded the Greenfield
University, located at Kasarami village on the Kaduna-Abuja Highway and
kidnapped 23 students and an official of the institution. A few days later,
five of the students were killed in cold blood. It took the intervention of the
Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmed Gumi, and the alleged payment of
about N180m ransom and 10 motorcycles before the remaining students were
released. Before the kidnap of the Greenfield University students, the state
government had also disclosed that bandits had attacked the government-owned
secondary school in Ikara LGA. But for the prompt intervention of security
personnel, at least 307 students of the institution would have been abducted.
These attacks on schools did not happen in isolation, as the Kaduna State
government also revealed that bandits operating across the state had killed at
least 323 people and kidnapped 949 others in the first quarter of 2021. Some
parents of the abducted students of the Federal College of Forestry
Mechanisation and the Greenfield University vowed never to take their children
to the schools again, unless insecurity measures are put in place. Mr. Ahmed
Aliyu, whose son was kidnapped at Greenfield University, said he paid ransom
for the release of his son. According to him, the money was raised by
relatives. Asked how his son was faring, he answered: “When they were released,
we took him to the hospital for a check-up and since that time, he has been
doing well. But you know, after such an experience, there will be bad stories
to tell about what happened. They were sleeping in the bush without good
drinking water and food. He has been telling us so many bad things about the
incident. The story is almost the same anywhere there is kidnapping; very bad
experiences. The children would be forced to sleep in the bushes. They sleep on
grasses and could have been bitten by snakes. The bandits used to threaten them
that if members of their family didn’t bring money, they would kill them! This
naturally made them not feel safe.” Another parent, Mr. Anzigah Jonah, whose
daughter, a Greenfield student, was kidnapped, said: “We borrowed a lot of
money to be able to pay the ransom. Many people did some things to be able to
raise money for ransom. Some sold all their assets at giveaway prices because
of the desperate situation. Take me, for instance, that was what I did. There
was no other option. Like you were aware, the state government said they
couldn’t assist. Do we then leave our children in that bush?” Jonah said that
following the incident, he heard that Greenfield University was relocating to
another site close to town. The Officer in Charge, UNICEF Nigeria, Rushnan
Murtaza, said it was worrisome that schools have become targets by bandits in Nigeria.
According to her, it is a gross violation of the right of children to
education. Murtaza urged the Nigerian Government to take all measures to
protect schools in the country, and to implement the promise made in the
Financing Safe Schools in Nigeria Conference last April. She said: “Schools
must be safe places to study and develop, and learning should not be a risky
endeavour.”
The laws, the issues
A former senator, Kaduna Central Senatorial District, Shehu
Sani, revealed that bandits had taken possession of all local government areas
in Kaduna State, leaving only two. Sani also said that before the government
announced closure of some schools in the state, terrified parents had already
withdrawn their children from school.
He added: “Some parents took their children to the city to
enrol them, but these parents live in fear.
These days, parents take their children to schools and wait
for them to close so as to take them home.” According to him, abductions
continue in the state because no serious action has been taken to tackle the
issue by provision of necessary equipment to security forces.
The senator opined that the tense situation could be
arrested if leaders of the bandits are arrested and prosecuted. “How can
bandits kidnap and hold over 100 or more students captive without security
forces – Air Force, DSS, Army, Police – knowing their locations? It’s
unimaginable!” he said.
The Executive Director of the Rule of Law and Accountability
Advocacy Action Centre (RULAAC), Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma, said the un-abating
mass abductions and government’s helplessness in the face of increasing
criminal activities by bandits, signpost failure of government in the country
“These criminals and their locations are very well known because they
communicate with the parents of the victims and negotiate ransom with them,
which these parents usually pay out of helplessness, and the failure of the government
to protect their children or rescue them when abducted,” the activist said.
Nwanguma added that there is no effort whatsoever on the
parts of the government and security agencies to apprehend these bandits.
He said: “Instead, some governors and religious leaders
visit them in their dens in the forests ostensibly to negotiate with them.
Abduction for ransom is big business involving the bandits
and some politicians and some people in government.
It is discouraging education in the North, especially
girl-child education. This is part of the objectives of the Boko Haram Sect and
some extremists in the North who are opposed to Western education.”
A former Assistant Director of the Department of State
Services (DSS), Mr. Dennis Amachree, said: “Abduction of schoolchildren
persists because we have left the military and security forces alone to find
solutions to the problem. What can give positive results now is for every
citizen to get involved. An ‘Allsociety- approach’ is what we need to conquer
these bandits. All hands must be on deck to give information to the security
forces. Vigilance groups can be raised to resist the bandits. We have to stop
the victim mentality and be aggressive against the bandits.” The spiralling
fear, trauma dogging school attacks and abductions has given rise to out of
school children, migration, classrooms’ congestion, abandoned school
structures, early marriages, unemployment to mention but a few. Even as the
EiEWGN continues to advocate for the domestication of the SSD, it should be
emphasised that there are laws hitting on the rights of the Nigerian child to
be educated in a safe environment.
But the incessant attacks on schools and abductions have
negated these laws. Nigeria has a plethora of laws, but lacks enforcements.
According to EiEWGN, Nigeria is a signatory to numerous international legal
frameworks that protect education.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 (UDHR) is
considered the foundation of international human rights law. Article 26 of the
UDHR protects the right of every child to education. EiEWGN stated: “The Child
Rights Act (CRA), enacted in 2003, domesticated the Convention on the Rights of
the Child (CRC) in Nigeria. It is the principal law recognising the rights of
children.
Section 15 of the CRA obligates the Nigerian government to
provide free and compulsory basic education to every child in Nigeria. The Act
also emphasises the protection of children, including those in situations of
armed conflict.”
The group also disclosed that the Free Universal Basic
Education Act of 2004 (the UBE Act), confers the right to compulsory, free and
universal basic education on every child in Nigeria.
The Nigerian Strategic Framework for Violence free Education
in Nigeria (2007) emphasised protection of children from any forms of violence.
The Executive Director of Global Rights, Abiodun Baiyewu,
while reacting on safe schools, said: “We remind the government that it was as
a result of increased terrorist attacks on education, in particular, the
abduction of the Chibok girls, that occasioned the closure of all schools in
Borno State in March 2014, and that roughly 253,000 children were out of school
in the 2013-14 school years. In addition, by the end of 2014, Mohammed A d a m
a w a , Yobe and Borno states’ Universal Basic Education authorities had
reported a total of 338 schools destroyed.” Speaking on the Safe Schools
Initiative (SSI), Baiyewu explained that it was conceptualised as collaboration
between the Nigerian government, Global Business Coalition for Education and
private sector leaders to raise the profile of safe schools and learning environments
in times of conflict and emergencies. Baiyewu said that it was the hope of all
Nigerians that the initiative would fulfil its core objectives which include
moving students in the highest-risk areas to schools to safer parts of the
country, a programme for rebuilding schools and adding security, teaching and
education materials for displaced children in camps, provision and distribution
of learning materials and teacher training. According to him, at the start of
the project, $30,000,000 was raised with the support of foreign governments and
private sector leaders to help secure schools and coordinate humanitarian aid
in the region where Boko Haram continues to operate. He said that the
initiative’s officials claimed that they had deployed resources to establish
learning centres for displaced children, relocating over 2,000 students to
safer schools, training teachers to conduct safety drills for their students,
and so on.
“However, from recent trends, it is clear that the
government has failed to take concrete measures in fulfilment of the
initiative’s mission, and failed to justify, and account for the resources
devoted to it. For instance, since 2014 till date, mass school abductions
gradually became the norm in Northern Nigeria, and soon the Chibok girls lost
their poster children position for school abductions as mass abductions spread
to other parts of the country. “In the past six months, the abduction of
learners has grown astronomically in Nigeria. Between December 2020 and May
2021, at least 939 school children were kidnapped in mass abductions bringing
to mind again the strategies outlined in the Safe School Initiative, and the
very salient question of what happened to the money dedicated to protecting
schools in Nigeria. For instance, had CCTV cameras and high perimeter fences
been installed at the schools with adequate security personnel provided, most
of these abductions may have been prevented. Should Nigeria continue in this
trajectory, it will undoubtedly retain its global position as having the
highest number of out of school children in the world, and jeopardise the
future that it badly needs to secure for its teeming population, most of whom
fall within school ages.” Baiyewu called on the government to make public
disclosure of its interventions to secure schools, urgently rally stakeholders
around the critical need to protect learners of all ages, and address the
general spate of insecurity across the country. Professor Ahmadu Shehu, who
founded two NGOs focusing on education for underprivileged children and
conflict resolution in Nigeria, said that the moment parents are terrified
because of the security of their children in schools, enrolment will
drastically drop.
Shehu explained that if enrolment drops, it means more
children out of school and damage to dormant school structures. He said: “If
the government wants parents to send their children to school, it has to tell
them how their children will be protected from being kidnapped.
This is why most schools in the North have been shut down
and some parents, who have the means, have taken their children to other
schools. Majority, which have no means, will simply allow their children to
drop out of school.
If this continues, then in some years, we will become a
future of people without basic education.” Shehu opined that the inability to
checkmate the insecurity in Nigeria has nothing to do with extant laws, arguing
that the major problem is the inability to enforce available laws.
The professor also cited lack of political will on the part
of the politicians to do anything about the issue as a problem exacerbating the
issue.
He added: “The most important things the government should
provide are security, healthcare and education.
The present legal works in Nigeria have everything to ensure
that the country is safe and education for the Nigerian child is accessible. In
the event that there are gaps, then it is the state government that should
protect schools and schoolchildren. The state governors, who are their states
chief security officers, do not have security forces at their disposal and
that’s a very big gap.
“A serious government should be able to proffer solutions,
so that children shouldn’t go to school while feeling scared. If children are
scared, then I don’t think they should go to school because they wouldn’t be
able to learn anything.”
Shehu also noted that the insecurity in schools is the
microcosm of the general insecurity in Nigeria, explaining that school
abduction is a reflection of the general insecurity. According to him,
kidnappers target schools because the students are soft targets and vulnerable.
He added: “The buck of the game actually stops at the
President’s table. He’s the Commander-in-Chief and the Chief Security Officer.
If I were the President, I would reform the security forces
and provide funding. I believe that with effective, regulated policies, they’ll
be able to secure our society and communities.”
A clinical psychologist, Mr. Akin Gabriel, speaking on the
mental health of students and parents, who have experienced abductions, said
there will definitely be psychological health implications such as worry and
anxieties. According to him, such victims will be afraid and disoriented from
the normal things they know.
The psychologist noted that a way to help such victims is to
provide psychological processes, which will help them to debrief some of these
things and it should be done immediately when they are released.
He added: “Parents, who refused to take their children back
to the schools they were abducted from, are also going through phases and it’s
quite normal and some can even become angry. Psychological services must be
provided for parents.
Services like debriefing them, which involves evacuation and
elimination of odious circulatory materials, which had gathered at the
experience of the saga. Parents and children need to be debriefed and this
debriefing helps to identify the psychological intervention that will be done.
If it’s much then another psychological service will be
tried. The victim may be asked to share his or experience in order to allow
them to re-evaluate these materials so they won’t carry it on.”
Concluded
Additional reports by Baba Negedu and Daniel Atori
This report was facilitated by the Wole Soyinka Centre for
Investigative Journalism under its Regulators Monitoring Programme
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