The Commandant General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Ahmed Audi, on Thursday launched the Safe School Response Team to protect schools from all forms of attacks in the North Central region of the country.
Audi, while speaking in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital 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 Nigeria, said the federal government had domiciled the coordination of the project with the Corps.
He added that the squad which include men of the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Police Force, the Department of State Services, among others are expected to work in close partnership in order to tame 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 CG expressed confidence that the smooth implementation of the initiative would reduce the burden of out of school children in the region, and called on its stakeholders to support the Safe Schools implementation project to enable the security agencies achieve their set objectives.
“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 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 on 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 schools attacks and violence which has kept a lot of our children out of schools over a long period of time,” the NSCDC Commandant General added.
On his part, the Keynote Speaker of the occasion, Brigadier General MBG Martins, commended the federal government for initiating the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre, while expressing confidence that the issues of kidnapping and banditry in schools across the nation will soon be a thing of the past.
“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 a safe, secured and violent-free schools. The proactive step taken by the Corps to organise this programme will remain a noble and outstanding one,” he said.
In his speech, the Nasarawa State Commandant of the NSCDC, Abbas Bappa-Muhammed, while welcoming the Commandant General and other top government functionaries to the occasion, pledged the total commitment of all personnel of the command to ensure the protection of schools across the 13 Local Government Areas of the state.
Earlier, while declaring the workshop open, Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule who was represented by his deputy, Emmanuel Akabe, announced the donation of a building structure to the Commander of the NSSRCC, Tersoo Shaapera, and his team for the smooth take-off of the project in the state.
