FCT, 14 States risk attacks, FG says

At the back of the resurgence of the mass abduction of pupils, the Federal Government has stated that schools in 14 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, are at risk of attacks by the terrorising bandits and insurgents. The National Coordinator of Financing Safe Schools in Nigeria, Hajia Halima IIiya, confirmed to newsmen on Sunday, that the data of at-risk schools had been collected for intervention. IIiya did not mentioned the states during her interview, but the Commander of the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre, Nigeria Security, and Civil Defence Corps, Hammed Abodunrin, state that the names includes Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Benue, Yobe, Katsina, FCT, Kebbi, Sokoto, Plateau, Zamfara and other three states. About 465 pupils, teachers, and women were abducted in the past week are still in the custody of their abductors. In Sokoto State, 15 pupils of an Islamiya school were kidnapped in the early hours of Saturday, exactly less than 72 hours after 287 school children and teachers were kidnapped from the LEA primary school and the Government Secondary School both at Kuriga, in the Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State. Although, 28 of them have been reported to have escaped from captivity. A few before the Kaduna incident, 200 female Internally Displaced Persons were taken away by terrorists in Borno State. Report has it that the women were kidnapped in Ngala, the headquarters of Gambarou Ngala in Borno State while fetching firewood in the bush. Meanwhile, 9 of the women were reported to have gain back freedom on Sunday, now remaining about 191 still in captive. Penultimate Thursday, bandits abducted an undisclosed number of people in the Gonin-Gora community in the same residents to barricade the Kaduna-Abuja Expressway in protest. As response to the April 2014 abduction of the Chibok school girls, the Safe Schools Initiative was launched by the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and private sector leaders at the World Economic Forum Africa. The initiative entails a combination of school based interventions, community interventions to protect schools and special measures for at-risk populations. Safe Schools Fund was inaugurated with $10 million contribution by the Federal Government and another $10 million pledged from the private sector. In further support for the programme, the Federal Government budgeted N15bn for the SSI in the 2023 fiscal year. Speaking on the programme in an interview with one of our newsman on Sunday, IIiya explained that the implementation of the SSI had started in several states. Responding to questions on what was being done to fortify schools against bandit attacks, she said, "The project has taken off. We commenced implementation in 2023 with the flag off of the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre, which we intend to replicate at the state and local government levels.