It is the light of the outrage that everyone must have felt that we should look at the call jointly made by the National Human Right Commission (NHRC) and the Unity Schools Old Students’ Association (USOSA), both headed by Professor Chidi Odinkanlu as chairman, for the transfer of children in the Unity Schools in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe to other schools outside the North East region.
This call is disheartening, to put it mildly. It is equally demoralizing, because I cannot recall the NHRC making such a call when students of the College of Agriculture and those of other schools were similarly targeted and killed by the terrorists; I cannot remember any alumni association calling for the ‘immediate transfer’ of the schools to other regions. But even if transfer is a valid proposition, one may ask: transfer to which region? We have to take into cognizance that the terrorists’ ideology is antithetical to Western education and westernization. Thus, schools in the areas are in danger and are subject to such attacks at any time.
The media recently quoted that the leader of the Boko Haram terrorist group as vowing to launch attacks on some prominent Northern leaders and establishments in the Niger Delta region. We have also read in newspapers of the arrest of sect’s members in many western states in the country. We equally recall the series of coordinated attacks and suicide bombings that occurred in some Northern states long ago. So which region is safe? The federal government in collaboration with the Borno State government claimed to have provided enough logistics to help fight the insurgency in the region. The question here is: have the resources reached the appropriate quarters?
Therefore, instead of listening to advocates of the transfer of students to other regions, the governments should intensify efforts to provide ample, free and friendly environment in all the regions that would empower the people to rat on the insurgents and their sympathizers and flush them out from the hilly and forested hideouts. The government should not compromise the security of lives and properties of its citizenry (as part of its oath of office). Pulling out students would mean closing such schools, defeating the concept of unity and handing a victory to the terrorists. No, that call is ill-motivated, and it smacks of a hidden agenda.
Mu’azu Ahmed Mu’azu, <[email protected]>;
