By Oluwatosin Maliki
In a significant development, Ahmed Audi, the Commandant General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, took a noteworthy step on Thursday, by launching the Safe School Response Team.
Quest Times reports that this specialized squad aims to protect schools and colleges of education from various threats in the North Central region of the country.
The squad includes officers from the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Police Force, the Department of State Security Services, among others.
The team is expected to curb the spate of attacks on schools, students and teachers in the six states of the North Central region, and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
The Commandant General of NSCDC, Audi, spoke extensively, while addressing officers at a one-day sensitisation workshop for strategic stakeholders in the North Central geo-political zone, on activities of the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre and Safe School Project, in Lafia, the Nasarawa state capital.
He noted that the federal government had domiciled the coordination of the project with the Corps.
Furthermore, the CG expressed confidence that the smooth implementation of the initiative would protect the children as well as reduce the burden of out-of-school children in the region.
Also, he called on stakeholders to support the Safe Schools implementation project to enable the security agencies to achieve their set objectives.
The statement read, “The National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre is a product of the National Plan on Safe Schools in Nigeria. The menace of violence and attacks on schools in Nigeria is not a new phenomenon to us. For more than a decade, Nigeria has experienced deliberate targeting of education and destruction of facilities; disrupting schools and keeping children out of school”.
“The risk of keeping children out of schools continuously and the consequences thereof can only be imagined. It is in an attempt to address this ugly situation that the Centre was created by the government and domiciled under the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps with the responsibility of coordinating safety and security responses against violence in schools and host communities”.
“So far, about 48 cases of planned attacks on schools have been thwarted through the collaborative efforts of the Centre. This workshop is one in the series of several advocacies, awareness creation and sensitization programmes being carried out by the Centre to galvanize support, synergy and collaborations towards tackling the challenge of school attacks and violence which has kept a lot of our children out of schools over a long period,” the NSCDC Commandant General added.
Meanwhile, Brigadier General MBG Martins stated in a keynote address, that the issue of kidnapping and banditry in schools across the nation will soon become a long forgotten issue, while commending the efforts of the federal government for initiating the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre.
He said, “The prevalent state of attacks around the world and schools in particular has been on the rise in recent years. This activity being undertaken by the NSCDC is in response to having safe, secure and violent-free schools. The proactive step taken by the Corps to organise this programme will remain a noble and outstanding one”.
In addition, Abbas Bappa-Muhammed, the Nasarawa State Commandant of the NSCDC, stated that all personnel in the command are committed to ensuring the protection of schools across the 13 Local Government Areas of the state.
In support of the project, the Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, earlier donated a building structure to the Commander of the NSSRCC, Tersoo Shaapera, and his team to aid the smooth take-off of the project in the state.
During the occasion, Governor Sule was represented by his deputy, Emmanuel Akabet.