Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned the panic closure of schools by the federal government and some states in the north without working out alternative home- teaching mechanisms for the children who would be academically and educationally displaced and disadvantaged.
The group in a press statement issued Monday and signed by the national coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, recalled that the federal government and some northern states have ordered a shutdown of academic activities in some schools over rising insecurity and abduction of pupils.
He said while the federal government closed 41 Unity Schools, governors of Kwara, Plateau, Niger, Benue, and Katsina also shut down schools in their states.
HURIWA recalled that panic and tension escalated on Friday after bandits attacked St Mary’s School, a Catholic institution in the Papiri community of Agwara local government area, Niger state, abducting 215 students and 12 teachers.
“This was only four days after 26 schoolgirls were abducted from Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga, Kebbi.
HURIWA recalled that during that Monday attack, the terrorists shot dead the school’s vice principal, Hasan Makuku, and left the principal with a gunshot wound.
“Two of the abducted girls later managed to escape, one returning late on Monday and the other fleeing moments after the attack.
“While Nigerians were still reeling from the kidnap of the Kebbi schoolgirls, gunmen again struck the Niger Catholic school around 2am on Friday just as it was confirmed that the bandits stormed the school while the boarding students were asleep and whisked away over 300 students.
“We are sorry to say that what the federal and state governments have just done by hurriedly closing down public boarding schools across the country and in many Northern states is a collective acceptance of defeat to the terrorists. What exactly did the federal government and the states in the federation done since the first case of mass abductions from schools which happened close to a decade now in Borno state?
“What has the government done with the budgets approved for schools safety initiative which the central government informed Nigerians that the government of the United Kingdom donated money for its implementation? What is the fate of millions of school children displaced by the thoughtless, irrational and cowardly decision of the federal and state governments to shut down schools in the wake of the terror attacks by murderous Fulani tertorists and ISWAP?, HURIWA asked.
