Terrorism as threat to students in Kaduna

It took no time after terrorism reared its ugly head in Nigeria in 2009 for it to become apparent that education was under attack as much as the Nigerian state. Boko Haram, Nigeria`s pioneer terrorist group, from the beginning made no secret of its distaste for western education. The nature and targets of the attacks […]

It took no time after terrorism reared its ugly head in Nigeria in 2009 for it to become apparent that education was under attack as much as the Nigerian state. Boko Haram, Nigeria`s pioneer terrorist group, from the beginning made no secret of its distaste for western education. The nature and targets of the attacks have since confirmed this.

For more than a decade, ruthless terrorists, many of them spawned by Northern Nigeria`s educational disadvantage, and left with no modicum of proper education to temper their savagery, have continued to target schools, students and teachers.  When the 2014 abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State, rattled the world awake over the terrorism emergency springing up from the Giant of Africa, the handwriting appeared on the wall. A school in Dapchi was attacked shortly after. Same fate was to befall schools in Kankara, Tegina and a handful of other schools all over the North where Nigerian students have been forced by events to question their future.

However, since 2021, it is Kaduna State that has become a favourite stomping ground of the terrorists. That schools there have been disproportionately targeted distills a bitter irony for Nigeria`s “Centre of Learning”.

In March 2021, armed gunmen attacked the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization in Afaka and abducted about 39 students. They were only released more than a month later and of course only after ransom had been paid.

In May 2021, 16 students of Greenfield University were snatched from their school in Kaduna. It took more than two months, the deaths of five of them and millions in ransom for the last student to be released.

In July 2021, about 53 students of Bethel Baptist High School in Kaduna were abducted from their school and held for months. The Nigerian Baptist Convention had to spend about N250 million to secure the release of the students.

Now, lightning struck yet again in Kaduna. On May 31, 2022, bandits besieged the Birnin Gwari highway, in the Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State. Of course, as is now a tradition, some persons were abducted and about eight vehicles reduced to ashes.

Among the victims were students who were travelling to write exams for the School of Health Technology in Makarfi which exams were scheduled to hold at the Kaduna State University in the metropolis.

It does beggar belief. It beggars belief that Kaduna State remains so insecure with the authorities in the state and federal levels unable to do much about it. Security personnel in the state have also been hit hard by the insecurity. On April 3, 2022, about 10   Nigerian soldiers were killed when bandits attacked their military base in Birnin Gwari.

It does not require divination to see that schools in Kaduna State are anything but safe at the moment. Neither are the students who school in them. If anything, they have become the favourite hunting grounds of   terrorists who continue to patronize them in service of their iniquitous business of kidnapping for ransom.

Securing students is about securing the future and Nigeria must act quickly and decisively.

 

Kene Obiezu, [email protected]