The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has urged security agencies to invest more in intelligence in a bid to address the menace of attacks on schools in Nigeria.
Tunji-Ojo stated this at the Safe Schools National Summit with the theme ‘Tackling identified threats in the Nigerian Safe Schools Project,’ in Abuja on Thursday.
The minister noted that deploying men to schools across the country, especially in violence-inclined areas, was not enough, adding that security personnel must be proactive rather than reactive.
Tunji-Ojo stated, “NSCDC cannot carry out this safe school initiative alone. To secure our schools, we must leverage intelligence because it makes planning precise and makes actions quite direct.
“With the number of schools that we have across the country, it is not possible to deploy men to secure the environment. Though there are some critical infrastructures, such as perimetre fencing, among others, we must invest more in intelligence.
“We want the security personnel attached to our schools to be more proactive than reactive. At every point in time, the security agencies must be ahead of the criminals. If we are creative, we must always give the criminals a hard time for them to figure out what our strategies are.
“Being poactive has a lot to do with intelligence. I want to see schools in the most turbulent places secured as those in the Federal Capital Territory.”
The minister further called for a full implementation work plan for the Safe Schools programme to reduce the rate of out-of-school children, pledging full support to the initiative.
He added, “The Safe Schools initiative is one of the best initiatives of the government in recent times. As the Minister of Interior, I want to assure you that I assign myself 100 per cent to this initiative.
“The question is not about the rationale of the initiative, but it is about the effectiveness and implementation of strategies of the initiative.
“For me, as a country, we are not short of fantastic and brilliant ideas but we are short when it comes to effectiveness.”
In his remarks, the Commandant General, NSCDC, Ahmed Audi, said despite the multiplicity of interventions by stakeholders and security agencies, Nigeria was still grappling with the ugly challenge of school attacks and their consequent rising rate of out-of-school children.
Audi said the summit would attempt to “address perceived threats militating against the successful implementation of the Safe Schools project in Nigeria.”
“It is also intended to facilitate actions and to equip relevant stakeholders on the implementation of the Safe Schools Project,” he added.
Also, the Minister of Education who was represented by the Director, Support Services of the Ministry, Giginna Ifeyinwa, said, “The stark reality is that all these attacks on schools would have been prevented and the impact mitigated with collaboration, emergency preparedness and prompt response by relevant authorities by committing to the Safe School Declaration Guidelines.”
