In a sad recurrence of terror, Nigeria witnessed the abduction of scores of students from two schools within a harrowing four-day span: Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga, Kebbi State, and St. Mary’s School, in Agwara, Niger State. And not too sure of the next few days. As a researcher who has dedicated the last few years to studying schools attacks and students’ abductions that had even earned a TETFund grant alongside colleagues from Ibadan and other universities, I confront a maddening cycle of moaning each time I undertake to investigate more on the subject. The more I thought it is over, the more new statistics of school attacks occur, rendering my efforts a sisyphean task.
The statistics are not mere numbers; they are lives of innocent children emotionally fractured, and seemingly truncated education. Is anyone asking the question: Will these ones return to their schools where they experienced traumas that were harrowing?
These attacks demand some soul-searching. Why does Nigeria, remain a theatre for this brutality with these children as soft targets? When are we going to have the emotional reprieve when these children can learn, teachers teach, and parents at peace knowing their wards are learning and not in traumatic fears of what may befall them? And how do we explain the closure of some Unity colleges in the Northwest, Northeast, North central, and some parts of the South by the Federal Government? And the closure of all public schools in Katsina State, and others in Kwara, Plateau, Niger, and Benue states albeit temporarily? A wise but a sad decision I must state.
The research community may continue to analyse and expound. However, without political will to halt the horrendous statistics, our research works risk becoming elegies for the abducted, and the future of education that looks bleak amidst school insecurity.
Let those who are in charge act. Let communities unite in intelligence sharing. Until then, my pen mourns, and remains a reluctant tool in school insecurity research, and tragedy that is befalling our education.
How long, O Nigeria, will shadows and wailing stalk our schools? Again, I ask, how long?
Prof. Aremu is a security scholar at the University of Ibadan
